Mountains are for Climbing

Many of you know, if you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, that I struggle with an eating disorder. You can read more about that here. Lately, with the ongoing threat of Covid and the increased patient load at my workplace (you can read about what I do here), I’ve been succumbing to the urge to rapidly consume the contents of my cupboards, healthy or otherwise. I recently took the important step of booking an appointment to see a professional about my problem. I’ve always been a self-helper. Whenever my behaviours resulted in too many unpleasant outcomes, I would read widely on my issues and adopt new coping strategies. Often, this would produce small, lasting changes, but I’m finally ready to admit that I’ve done what I can and I need another’s perspective and guidance.

Move it and Lose it: A Former Fatty on Going Lean

The word fat has been in my vocabulary since I was a child. I’m sure there was a time when I was small in size, but I don’t remember it. I was never a wisp of a girl, it’s not how I’m built. When I see pictures of myself in preadolescence, the first word that comes to mind is stocky. I’m reminded of an impish boy pointing at me on the playground, his eyes flashing, as he sang, off key, the popular, Ball Park Frank’s jingle, “They plump when you cook ’em”. He wasn’t inaccurate. Plump. That’s me, for most of my life anyway.

See if I Care

I lost something recently that I cherished. No, there’s been no death in my family. I like to use big words and have a tendency to exaggerate. I lost pictures I’d taken on my holidays, pictures I’d admired and played with and hoped to share on Instagram, probably 500 of them. I went on a hike to a lake this summer and impulsively took my phone, the keeper of my precious pictures, on a swim and, nope, I didn’t have them backed up. My phone is dead, blank, unyielding, even though I smothered it in quinoa, rice, and silica crystals, took it in to have it checked out by people who know more about phones than I, stroked it and prayed over it. I’m still praying, but to date, sadly, there’s been no resurrection.

There’s a World out There

There’s a kid picking through a garbage can

While I sit down to breakfast

There’s tired man in an unemployment line

While I head off to work

There’s an invalid struggling to use his limbs

While I climb on my bicycle

And there’s a world out there trying

While I’m watching my TV

 

There’s a girl, she’s been living in a cardboard box

While I’m warm and sheltered

There’s a child lying broken on a kitchen floor

While I have been embraced

There’s a boy dodging bullets in a civil war

While I take peace for granted

There’s a world out there crying

While I’m watching my TV

 

I live in a world where I can choose to stay

Will I venture out, will I look and really see

That life is happening all around me?

I’ve been living in a fairytale

Some are living in a tragedy

What can I do?

Will I do anything?

 

There’s a lonely one pining in an empty room

While I’m loved and wanted

There’s sickly soul looking for a lasting cure

While I’m whole and strong

There’s a muddled mind searching for the simple truth

While I’m clear and rested

There’s a world out there dying

While I’m watching my TV

 

I live in a world that I must choose to leave

I must venture out, I must look and really see

That life is happening all around me

Lord, I wanna be a living spring

Welling up to eternity

Where everyone can come and drink

There’s a world out there

 

Posts come out every Monday morning, a poem every third Monday. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to receive notifications of my posts via email. Follow me on Instagram username: pollyeloquent. Thanks for reading. 🙂

 

 

Chocoholics Unanimous

I love chocolate. I eat it every day and often at every meal. It’s a staple in my diet. It makes me happy.

I’m an addict, I know. When I was a teenager, I ate seven chocolate bars in one sitting. In the middle of the night, I hurled chocolate chunks over the side of the top bunk. My sister, the unfortunate occupant of the bottom bunk, vacated the room after being hit by the splatter. When my children and I go out for ice cream sundaes and they leave blobs of hot fudge at the bottom of their bowls, I wonder if they’re mine, while I clean up after them.