Even beyond whatever psychological or emotional satisfaction
food provides, there’s absolutely no question in my mind that it sets off
actual, chemical reactions that act as on my body like a drug.
When I overeat, it’s for a variety of reasons: the food is
delicious (I have a couple of foods that I call “binge foods” that I can’t
bring home with me because I’ll eat them until I burst. Sushi is one. Ethiopian
food is another. Indian food. All because they are so, so good.); I’m in a
social situation and eating mindlessly (I actually do that MORE when I’m with
other people than when I’m alone, because being around others stresses me. I
also don’t really taste food when I’m eating with other people, excepting a
very small group of very close friends where I can actually fully relax); and
when I’ve had a stressful/exhausting experience and want to “party”.
“Party” is a term that my overweight/advice-filled friend
came up with years ago to describe an activity that I’m betting skinny people
don’t understand: eating to the point of being over-full, for the purpose of
releasing whatever feel-good chemicals an overextended stomach releases.
Partying is awesome, especially after a long day of
speaking/travel/being around people, or after any day that just kind of sucked.
Not ONLY do I get to eat whatever I want, damn the rules, but it literally
feels afterwards like I’ve taken a Valium. And it’s super-easy to do, because
the thing about days like that are that they drain your willpower to the point
where there’s none left to avoid the binge. Not that I really WANT to avoid the
binge. The binge is the one fun part of my crappy, hard, day.
Partying, like drinking, is a probably-unhealthy coping
mechanism that’s easy, legal, and relatively cheap. Unlike drinking, you can
drive home afterward, too. It’s something I look forward to like a drug addict
looks forward to the next score.
I feel silly admitting this, and feel obligated to say that
it’s a sometimes thing. In a really stressful period, I might REALLY party 5
times in a month. In a more normal (that is, stressful, but not “ending every
day feeling super-sorry for myself” stressful) period, it might be once in 3
weeks. It’s not like I purge afterward, either, because that would take away
the actual fun of binging. I know I sound like an alcoholic who’s explaining
that it’s OK that I drink too much because I never drink and drive, but there’s
a part of my brain screaming, “You’re not a binge eater, you’re just someone
who binges on food occasionally”, as if one were somehow morally superior to
the other.
Overindulging is, I think, a valuable thing. I think it’s
probably lodged deep in the collective
unconscious of the human race. We think of our ancestors overindulging in
food, or drink, or peyote, or sex, or whatever, to celebrate the end of scarcity
(all those spring fertility rituals, you know, the ones with the bunnies and
the eggs); the success of the harvest (the various fall feasts, including
thanksgiving); to mark personal milestones (marriage, adulthood, and, wait,
where’s the one for menopause??); to make us feel better after losses (wakes,
funerary feasts).
We’ve known how to party for, probably, millenia. But the
difference between my primarily northern European ancestors and I is that for
them, the binge was a risk and a sacrifice. Eating the last of the preserved
meat at the spring equinox festival meant risking that a summer drought would
literally kill them the next winter. Putting on a big wedding feast probably
meant that the family had to scrimp and save their produce and goods for months
or years in preparation for one huge blowout. They HAD to be aware that the
harvest fest shortened the cushion they had if the following winter was
overlong, or the caribou were scarce, or whatever it was that weighed on the
minds of fur-wearing Viking dudes, which is how I always picture my ancient
ancestors.
But I bet they did it anyway, because there’s an emotion
steam valve built into humans, and every so often we just gotta pull the cord,
or we blow up.
The problem for me, and probably a lot of people, is that
the cost of partying is much, much lower to me than it was to them. If I run
out of food, I go to the store and buy some more, and it doesn’t even cost me a
day’s wages. I can use food, and drink, every time I feel even a little bad, and
every time I feel even a little like celebrating, because the only risk is to
my heart and pancreas, and I can’t see those, so screw ‘em.
I don’t have to sacrifice much to party. I don’t have to—or,
I suppose, get the pleasure of—looking forward to the big blowout months in
advance. I don’t even have to be around other people, which was, I think, a big
part of the fun to my loud-mouthed, well-muscled, always-sunburned forebears
(because that’s also how I picture them). I can have what my
great-great-great-great grandmother probably would have considered an
incredible feast at any moment, all by myself, and still have plenty of
resources left to get through the winter with.
A life devoid of binges doesn’t sound like much fun. The
trick, I think, is to make those binges COUNT. Partying out because I’ve had a
hard day feels pathological. Partying out because of some trigger (it’s
Saturday night! I’m out with so and so!) sounds like destructive and unthinking
habit. Partying out because it’s a celebration that’s been planned for, well in
advance, sounds deeply…human.
So I’m not going to say I’m never going to party again. I
will, in very brief, very conscious, very satisfying, planned in advance,
much-anticipated, and, importantly, guilt-free chunks that DON’T turn into
weeks-long festivals.
That actually sounds like a LOT more fun to me than the
parties I’ve been having for years. Those seem puny, in the sense that they
make ME feel puny and out of control and undisciplined and small. Those spur-of-the-moment
parties are always guilt-soaked, no matter how much I try to tell myself I “deserve”
it. They’re fun, but they’re not really satisfying. There’s an element of grim
self-destructiveness in them (“I KNOW I shouldn’t eat this, but FUCK IT. I’LL
JUST BE FAT”). The endorphin release is nice, but it’s short lived, and I recently
discovered that there’s also one of those in a hard workout.
I have every intention of continuing to party. Gleefully.
Heartily. Just a whole lot more rarely, and for the right reasons.
Comments
Post a Comment