Unlike Vampires of the Black Court, a Leftover Demon cannot be killed by a wooden stake to the heart, it has no head to chop off, Holy water only makes soupy and garlic (with a little franks) often makes the Leftover Demon more desirable. An exorcism may work on a Leftover Demon but only if the those doing the rites are hungry. For Leftover Demons cannot be banished, only eaten, given away or thrown away.
I love leftovers. I love to take them and transform them into something new. Cheese, garlic powder, seasoning salt, cracked pepper and franks are often on the roster of Team Leftover. Last night's Outback is tomorrows breakfast skillet. Friday night's pizza is Saturday morning cold pizza w/ mustard, not creative but oh so delicious.
Tomorrow, in addition to standard stock, my fridge will contain leftover taco meat and leftover chicken stir-fry on fried rice. Those things are just screaming to be played with, but sadly they wont. They will be left to spoil, in favor of the trail of urinary annoyance. For on my liquid journey there is not leftover surprise. No sauteed garlic, onion, soy, peppered diced chicken fingers on a french fry hash. No sweet & sour pork omelet or fried-egg-half-club sandwich. Just the sweet, chocolate, redundancy of Slimfast or the smooth, salty, ever so health V8... grrrr......
In thinking of Leftover Demons I find myself thinking of anger. I'm not angry that I can't eat leftovers, as I've mentioned before, the lack of solids does not bother me. After years of cutting weight so I can be in the starting lineup on my wrestling teams, food isn't tempting, 40-Days is just annoying. As noted yesterday, I wrestled 157 lbs in college, a nutritionist at GVSU calibrated my body fat at 1.6 %. Actually, a student calibrated it at 1.9%, a machine found it to be 1.7% and the professional, thinking they were both wrong, did it herself and came up with 1.6%. I remember this clearly because after the nutritionist calculated, then double checked her results, she said something along the line of "wrestlers are disgusting, I don't know how you have any energy to function at this body fat, you could die from being this skinny." Sadly, this was my junior year, I stupidly went back down to 157 lbs as a senior.
I digressed, sorry. Anyway, I get angry at times. Never violent towards others, though I have broke a cell phone, or three. Yelling often occurs, but the most common outlet is evil, ruthless, forked tongue sarcasm. Bitter acid tones in my voice, attached to sentences designed to make the target feel more stupid than I am angry and remind any in audience that they do not want to be on the receiving end. However, since Day-11, no sarcasm and the anger is less. Things still upset me, a few times it's bubbled over, but it bubbles less. Not a severe bubble and a few times the bubble has been avoided by prayer. If not God than at least prayer takes time, time requires breathing, breathing slows the heart rate, which lowers blood pressure, which calms me :)
Today, I spoke separately with a couple friends, about my journey. Both of whom have utilized and needed prayer in their life. Telling the story, to date, has helped me realize the more I talk about needing more from this journey then a trim waist, the more I will get out of it. We all have this natural desire to be self made, to prove that we can do it on our own: I paid my way though college, I started a small business, I was a successful wrestler, I've ran a marathon etc, etc, etc. But the list is always missing: With student loans, with my my father-in-law's idea and co-signature, because of great coaches and practice partners, because Beth watched Daniel so I could train. The support reasons, that never get noted, when people list their accomplishments can always be traced back generation, to generation, to generation, to, well, you get the idea. It all goes back to the beginning, to God.
So maybe this about learning to understand it's greater than "me", that I don't really do anything myself and that I'm not actually in control of what I think I am.
I don't know - needs more thought and time - both of which with happen.
Random Notes: Started the day at 199 lbs, will finish around 1,500 calories, which will include 4 beers. Tomorrow I'll need more healthy calories.
No comments:
Post a Comment