Cauliflower and Crazy

 

I restrict all day to counter the bingeing of yesterday. I am determined not to eat until tomorrow. Somewhere around mid-evening my resolve snaps. I decide that I can eat cauliflower and hummus rather than go on another binge. Once I have made the decision to allow myself to eat, I cannot wait. It is urgent, serious, life threatening.  I drive to the grocery store. I am frantic. I hit every red light. It is the longest drive in the history of driving. I grip the steering wheel. I want to bang my head against it out of hunger and rage. I am on edge knowing that I could lose control and buy anything, everything except that cauliflower. It is my sole focus.

In the grocery store I run crazily looking for the damn cauliflower. An old man is shuffling in front of me and I am shaking. He blocks the aisle and I want to shout from frustration. There has to be a faster way to get food than this. “Don’t binge. Don’t Binge. Please, don’t binge.” I mutter like a mantra as I start to panic. There is no cauliflower anywhere. I must be delirious. How can there not be the one food that I am allowed to eat? I ask the store clerk for cauliflower. He says he will check in the back. I stand amongst the vegetables ready to weep. I will lie down by the lettuces and sob if there is no cauliflower. I am so terrified of going on a binge if I cannot find the one safe food I crave. I must eat a cauliflower. My existence has been narrowed down to this.

Eventually he returns with one and I am beside myself with relief. I take it, ecstatic. I know I am sick. I am so excited about this cauliflower that I want to cry. I try to rush out the store. The line ups to pay are agonizingly long. Another old person is strolling in front of me. I will not make it. I will not survive this. It will finish me. I will die of this starvation holding a f**king, miserable cauliflower in my hands like it was the holy grail.