Inside and Out

Roger was pretty excited when I woke up Saturday morning and told him I wanted to  make Seafood Paella for dinner.  I could also sense his disappointment when he got out of bed and saw me scrubbing down the kitchen instead.  I just can't cook in a dirty kitchen...actually, I can't cook in a kitchen that isn't spotless.  It's not just the countertop and the stove and floors and obvious things.  I scrubbed out the refrigerator, cleaned the vents above the microwave, the tile grout on the floor, pulled out the stove, etc.

I could hear Roger getting out of bed and knew that he would come in and tell me the kitchen was already clean.  This is one of my neuroses that he just doesn't understand.  He deals with it because he loves me, but his logic is, if it already looks clean and I'm going to dirty it up again, why not wait to until I'm finished cooking.  The opperative word, though, is "looks".  Looking clean and being clean are not the same.  Things might look perfect on the surface, but take off that top layer and there's dirt, grime, germs.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately.  Taking care of the inside and not just the outside.  It's easy to focus on our outer selves.  Shower, fix my hair, put on makeup...making myself look good on the outside, doesn't guarantee that I'm beautiful on the inside too.   I can focus on these things, because they are simple.  It takes no effort, no willpower, no real work.

I know someone who's struggling with addiction.  He spent the better part of the year focusing on the wrong thing.  The outside, the surface.  He is frustrated because he doesn't understand why he can't get anywhere, why he fails.  It's because he's focusing on the wrong thing.  Why does he have the addiction?  What is he making up for?  What is he not addressing that will make him stop?  Those are hard question.  And the process of dealing with those emotions is tough.  It's easier to ignore them, but leave them untouched and they will contaminate your soul like a dirty kitchen will contaminate your food.

Since Kaelyn's birth, I've been struggling with accepting my new body.  I don't want to.  I want it to go back to before I got pregnant.  It won't.  I have to accept that...but, I can still change it.  Make it into something I'm not ashamed of.  For a few months, it was easy for me to rationalize that I just had a baby.  No one will look at me and see the disgusting person that I feel like on the inside.  They will see a new mom and they will understand.  I've been trying to eat well, exercise, but for the most part, I've been unmotivated to really make a change.  I can't go back to my old my diet and think I'm going to look the same.  Things have changed and I need a new plan.

But, as I was scrubbing the kitchen floors, it occured to me that I'm focusing on the wrong thing.  I'm trying to get back my old body without changing my lifestyle too much.  I don't want to give up the cooking...or at least the kind of cooking I've been doing...where I experiment with creating recipes and focus on making them taste as good as I can, without regard for how good the ingredients I put into them are for my body.  Why?  Is food, more specifically, creating good food a substitute for something?  Is there something on the inside that is forcing this need on me?  If I truly want to change my outside body, what should I focus on on the inside to make that happen?  What is in there that is preventing me from getting the motivation I need to really make a change?

I don't know.  But I will think about it and search for it and when I find it, I will address it.  I will scrub it down and purify it like I do my kitchen.

We never got around to the paella.  We ended up spending the day running around town shopping, then came home, tired and not at all hungry.  I will still make the Paella, just later this week.  The kitchen is already clean, so that's one thing down...