Ruby talks about the beast inside her
that she feels like she fights with in order to beat her own food
addiction. She must wonder if anyone can
really understand how formidable the beast is.
I do. I understand Ruby.
I know because I wrestle with the
beast every single day. I’ve seen it disguised
as a sad, solemn child with eyes full of pain, a tear rolling down one cheek as
she looks at me with such despair and desolation…she is so hungry and so
broken…how can I deny her something to eat?
It would be monstrous to ignore such need. “Please help me”, she begs…and I know the
comfort that cookie or sandwich or whatever…will give her. How do I refuse a hurting child begging for
relief?
And then she melts into that
fascinating, compelling, slightly reckless and dangerous friend who challenges
me to defy convention, live by my own rules and refuse someone else’s authority
– “who are they to tell you what to do or how to live…they don’t know what you
and I deal with” – she laughs with restrained fury and calls to me “ignore
them, if you want to eat, let’s eat!?”
And I want to be brave the way she seems, and I want to dismiss those
constant nagging “adult” restrictive voices and the constant control, and get
wild with some French fries. I’d be a
revolutionary, she tries to convince me…not a failure…the failure would be to
follow the rules of the controlling ones who lecture me and tell me I’m not
good enough. I really want to jump on
the back of her motorcycle without a helmet and tell the world to go to hell.
And then the beast melts into grandma…soft
and pillowy, with talcum powder hugs that wrap around my aching, tired,
punished body. I soak up her comfort,
and rest in her absolute faith in my beauty and perfection. She urges me to eat – “you need a little
something to eat…here…my precious, perfect little girl…eat…eat…” I can relax because her permission overrules
everyone else. She’s the grandma and she
is in charge.
The beast is terrifying because she has
endless weapons in her arsenal to defeat me…she knows what will work moment to moment
and transforms and dances from one argument to another, alternately cajoling,
giving permission, venting rage, exuding pain…she is the victim and the voice
that never, ever leaves me alone. She
has a thousand faces, a thousand strategies, and moves from approach to
approach with dizzying force and strategic, deadly accuracy.
What chance do I have against such a
skillful adversary? I can never hope to
convince her with a logical argument because she is better than me at pushing
my emotional buttons…always one step ahead…so much more savagely honest and
manipulative than I could ever consciously allow myself to be. Her bottomless need for me to eat has been
crafted and reinforced for decades…for generations…since time began. And she confidently presumes triumph.
For me to stand firm takes relentless
defense, constant strong shields, and a level of emotional balance and
fortitude only ever achieved by wise old Buddhist monks…certainly not something
a traumatized, battered real-world 57 year old woman can conjur and sustain.
The
battles are endless but even worse than that they escalate without
warning. Suddenly a moment of weakness
is detected by the beast and the focused, brutal pounding on the castle gates
begins…I race to counter the assault, knowing nothing less than my life is at
stake…but then she melts through the walls and materializes in front of me with
those sad eyes…clutching a broken toy, dirty-faced, bent over and holding her
belly and keening with pain. How do I
fight that?
Yeah…Ruby…I’ve met the beast. I live with her every single moment of every
single day. And I can never, ever fill
her up, satisfy her, or ignore her. I
don’t know the trick to permanently defeating her. Or how to love and embrace her enough to
soothe her panic and volcanic need.
And
so, I continue on this endless quest. I have to keep putting one foot in front
of the other, aware that the enemy is me, the salvation is me, the cavalry over
the horizon is me, the weapons fired are all me, and the holy grail is me.