As it turned out, only one of them crushed my bonhomie under its feet like a bug. But it got its work in early, so there was a reasonable chance of its effects lasting all day.
The question I have for you is: when is good news not good news?
The answer of course is when the news has been previously better.
You see, in my first week madness, I've been unofficially weighing in a lot since last Friday. On that day, I was 18st 13.5. Saturday, I was 18st 12.5, a loss of 4.5 lbs since last Tuesday. Then there was the Proper Dinner on Sunday, and yesterday morning I was up to 18st 13.25.
I didn't have a particularly bad day yesterday, perhaps a little heavy on the bread in terms of my evening meal, but since some people have told me they admire 'the truth' with which I talk about things here, I'll tell you honestly that when I saw 19st 1 on the Nazi Scales this morning (sorry - for the newbies - it's my contention that all bathroom scales are essentially reincarnated Nazis, doomed to a lifetime of being stepped on by people like me, and which seek the only vengeance they can take by being unmitigated bastards in this life too), I reeled. I did a dramatic, if pretty quiet, fling against the bathroom doorframe and very briefly, I did a bit of weeping.
Yes, I know, a bit pathetic, but I did it. The point is that from the viewing window of my brain, I'd been in the 18s all week. I'd broken the deadlock on that number, which scanning through pre-restart entries in this blog will show you has been keeping me from feeling like I'm making progress for a long time now. I'd applied myself and done it in a handful of heartbeats. I'd felt like I was going somewhere, and doing that usual first week thing of losing water. So to suddenly, without any real warning, find myself back over the borderline in 19 territory was a rabbit-punch to the face. Hence the reeling in shock and something absurdly like self-revolving, egotistical grief - the me I thought I'd been all week was gone, and woe was me!
Now bear in mind, I've actually still done what I've said was safe to do - I've lost two pounds in a week, so technically, I'm on target. The news is actually good. But my perception of it this morning was akin to 'That's it then, might as well give up.'
It's a darkly comic business, Disappearing. There appears to be danger and derailment around every corner; the urge to self-sabotage is always so near the surface, because the method of self-sabotage is comforting in the very short term. That urge to say 'Might as well give up then,' and do something comforting and foolish is powerful because we've often trained ourselves to react to bad news with the self-soothing method of eating our comfort foods.
Instead, I got on a train this morning, and text-swore chattily at a friend to tell her the news as I perceived it. I believe her exact response was 'Don't be an arse. You can do this.'
Can't beat a bit of tough love.
And the fact is, my Starbucks day was great, the day-job day came without any major wall-punching trauma except the price of a return train ticket to London in May, and meeting up with my old schoolfriend for the first time in, as we worked it out, a little over fifteen years, was lovely - we chatted for a good long while about everything and nothing, as you can and do with old friends - family, work and so on - but also at surprising length, given our newly-reunited status, about reading and writing and books and authors. Had a great time.
Then my barista pal, Naz, who's developed a habit of writing fun stuff on my Starbucks cups, came over all philosophical. 'Always start your day with a smile,' she wrote.
Seriously, how cool is that?
Of course, on the basis of there being a particular time and place to locate your smile, today was something of an epic fail on my part - I so did not start my day with a smile. But if I can adapt her philosophy wantonly for my own uses, I think she's onto something. If somehow, during any day, you can locate your smile somewhere, you're doing alright. And if you can pause, and step outside your own bullshit for just a second and look around you at all the great stuff you have - the people who want to see you, or talk to you, or think of you, the people who give you their smiles, free of charge - then you'll probably be able to find your own smile too, because by getting out of the way of your own self-revolving funk to see what you have, you give yourself a second to realise how much that is, and the smile will usually follow that sense of gratitude. So today, thank you to Stephen my schoolfriend, and Naz and all my Starbucks crew, and Sian, my tough-love friend, and Ma for supportive texts, and you on the other end of these words, for being there, all invisible and electronic.
And of course in half an hour, I'll pick up d, the biggest smile-locator of my life, and the smile will come unbidden at the sight of her. And bottom line, any day that happens is a great day.
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