Greasing the Steps on the Road To Hell

A weird mixture of emotions this morning. On the one hand, three separate people have messaged me to say they're following and enjoying the blog, which was very gratifying (although two of them complained that I never post how much weight I've lost - every Tuesday folks, and not before, because, as we've seen, weighing randomly is a path to saw-the-top-of-your-head-off bonkersness for me). On the other hand, today feels like a genuinely low ebb in the process, and again, it's all wrapped up in the catacombs of my own brain.

Yesterday, I told you that I was having to stop the proper walking for a while so a blister on my foot could heal properly and not go all horrid and diabetic and oozy and grim. What I didn't mention is just how eeeeeasy it was to slip back into habits, once I had what I considered to be a genuine reason to do so. Truly, the blistering is not an excuse, it's a proper health-related reason not to push my luck, but all that pap about going further and longer and better on the bike shattered into gibberish the moment I approached the bike last night. It was as though my body had had a day of taking buses, and had used the time to pause for breath and take stock of everything I've been doing to it. It hurt. My bones hurt. My back ached, my knees trembled, my head was pounding, and I said "sod it" and turned my back on the bike. d even went as far as to say "you could do the tube station hill walk and see if it hurts" - but this morning I took the bus again. This is the point at which the blistering becomes an excuse, and I know it, because it doesn't hurt, and it's gooped and plastered, and she's perfectly right, I could have done it, but I chose not to. What is probably worse, when I went to buy my daily water in Kensington this morning, my normal, safe breakfast wasn't available, and some instinct made me pick up an individual chicken and mushroom pie.

For breakfast!

Now of course, it's entirely possible that the Xenical will take care of this misdemeanour for me, but there's something inherently self-disappointing about this action. If I let it, it could shatter my perspex boxes of resolve and swamp my progress, and drag me roaring and swallowing back to a depressing Square One. Clearly, I need to get a spine from somewhere and get back on the bike tonight as promised.

Oddly enough, I knew something was wrong last night even before I got home. I went to Oxford Street, to get my hair cut at the second attempt. I meant to say yesterday, when I claim that I 'walked to Oxford Street', at least in the Summer, don't let it fool you. What I mean is I walked to Marble Arch and then shuffled frustratedly along the pavement with seven million other bastards who all want to take up exactly the same space, and who all tut and mutter at the fact that they're digging up the road on Oxford Street again. But last night it was worse. Last night, I went beyond my normal whingy apparently funny bitchfest.

People were eating ice-cream.
In the Summer. The Bastards!
I think it was the ease with which they did it that made me furious. Buying it, licking it, swallowing, enjoying as though there was no consequence. As if they wouldn't have to pedal their asses off for a day and a half to atone for such actions. I wanted to punch them. I wanted to punch them and punch them and punch them and really not stop, all for the ease of their lives. Of course, with a rational head on, this is lunacy, as I've mentioned before - my own life is massively more easy than most people's on this planet, so what I have to bitch about is really nursery-school stuff. But again, as it's done several times already in this process, it gave me an insight into where religion, and particularly religious persecution, comes from. It's that idea that people are enjoying something from which you're excluded by virtue of a path you've chosen to walk. It can make you want to steal that pleasure from them, make them as miserable as you are, and then some. I never understood before that you can actually grow to genuinely resent people for just being who they are, because as d has rightly pointed out, I've never properly denied myself anything. Clearly, the wider lessen here is that self-denial can make you go very very strange if you let it. The trick, I suppose, if you find your path of self-denial worthwhile, is to find some self-awareness, and realise what's going on (certainly before you start to believe you're special or that fairies are talking to you, cos that's when people start to die), and rise above the negative impulses that wash over you from time to time.

And actually, writing that has just done me some genuine good. I've purged it. That feeling of discontent that has followed me round since yesterday and made me reckless this morning has sort of dissipated. It's Summer, enjoy all the ice-cream you like. I'd enjoy it with you if I could, but I have to do a different thing for now. Peace, love, happiness and ice-cream for all, I reckon. Low ebbs be damned, I'm getting back on track.

Phew...that was a close one.

Oh, and blood this morning is 5.4. Last night, after eating, it was 7.4, which is still within the acceptable range (and on a day of no exercise), so that's pleasing to know.