Reaching out to Ruby

There is a woman who used to be on the learning channel on TV named Ruby who has lost over 400 pounds but still needs to lose more.  She is an inspiring and amazing success story while being surprisingly open and honest about her continuing struggles, frailty, doubts and fears.  I’ve watched each hour hungrily as if gobbling up her experience will gird me in my own struggle.  Maybe it does. 

       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.