A Story of Recovery:
It’s About Time
They call ours the disease of more, and besides wanting to eat more, this addict also always wanted to do more. As a result, most of my life is littered with memories of running late, probably because I always overcommitted. I frequently planned the impossible, trying to fit everything in.
The most horrifying memory I have of running late is from long before I joined FA. I was in my mid-30s, a single mother of two, living on a housing project in southeast London. My son and daughter, ten and seven, were latchkey kids. They would walk home together from school, let themselves into the flat, call me at work, and make themselves a snack. Then they’d head back out onto the playground to play with friends until I got home, usually just an hour later.
One particular Thursday I decided to meet up at a pub after work with other shop stewards from my union— one of which (a married man, in fact)—I fancied terribly. Although I didn’t generally drink (food and cigarettes were my drugs of choice, then and always), I had consumed too much alcohol, and I was giving myself permission to indulge. I craved some of this man’s company and wanted a break from my life of work, children, and organizing. He and I ended up kissing, for a quick and frenzied moment, outside the pub. After too many minutes, in a swirl of anxiety, I finally broke away and raced for the bus. Sitting dizzily on the top deck, I fantasized about the rare sexually-charged encounter, grew more and more embarrassed at my promiscuity, and dreaded having been seen with this married colleague. Mostly though, I was terrified by the fact that I was running late. The kids were outside and it was growing dark.
Nothing would make the bus go faster. I lit a cigarette to calm myself, but only succeeded in making my stomach churn. I had visions of the children being left alone on the tarmac, while their peers were called in for tea. I could sense my young daughter’s nervousness and could envision my son’s look of contempt. I resented every passenger who pulled the cord to get off the bus and wanted to shriek at every car that slowed our progress.
Finally, quite unhinged, I saw my street. I bumbled down the stairs and leapt off the platform as we neared the stop, tripping over my feet onto the pavement. With a bloodied knee and searing pain in my ankle, I tried to hobble quickly to our building, and I climbed the four flights to our front door. I could hear the children arguing in the kitchen.
I didn’t have an excuse; I didn’t even try. Instead, I did what I did best when life seemed out of control. I made a fast meal, comprised entirely of comfort foods—soft, white and yellow, greasy, and warm—and encouraged us all to tuck in. To ease my guilt, there was also a change for dessert; I gave my son some coins to take to the corner store, ordering sweets all around. There was no helping with homework that night because mum was too fried, and I don’t remember even reading to either child before bed, or caring about brushing teeth.
Of course, not all evenings were like that. We did survive as a little family, and enjoyed many happy, more orderly days. Still, the memory hangs on, the humiliation, the full knowledge that I raised two beautiful kids on my comfort food, introducing habits that would hang on in their lives for decades. While loving, I was not always dependable, and while there for them, I was often late in being so.
Years later, at the age of 53, I was living alone, with a now more ferocious and addictive personality. Professionally, I was a successful workaholic. But in my private life, I was frequently late for appointments, often racing into drive-thru restaurants, or indulging at CVS or Dunkin’s, just to keep my energy high. I continued to double-book myself, piling on expectations of myself that were impossible to meet. When finally I invested in a cell phone, it was used primarily to notify folks that I’d be there…soon.
FA found me, thank God, when I was so desperately unhappy with my 150-pound body and bingeing and starving. I was willing to change. I’ve been in program for eight years now, and my 127-pound body is right-sized. I count on a half-hour each morning in which to be quiet. I sit in my chair, close my eyes, ask for how to be my best self, and do nothing (even when there’s still much to do in my life). I’ve learned to plan fewer things in a day, to leave work on time, even to limit my exercising and gardening (things I used to do like a crazy woman). When I plan a date with my children, I arrive on time, and leave on time, too.
And during those moments when I can’t control the world, such as when bad traffic has me running late to qualify at a meeting, I’ve learned to accept the discomfort. The meeting can operate without me until I get there. What a happy, peaceful notion; about time, too.