Destruction, Once in a While

Archives: Easter 2014

“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.”

- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

—

On Monday I planned to get my diet back on track. For most of the day, I kept strict control of my caloric intake. I was eating healthy foods and no more than I needed. I felt great, like I was master of myself and my life. I was excited to get to bed at a reasonable hour and start again the next day.

Around 10 p.m. I received a text message. A care package full of ham and candy was coming my way. I was excited. This food would be great tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow. It would wait until tomorrow. I brushed my teeth to make sure.

But it didn’t matter. As soon as the food made it to my apartment, I completely surrendered control. As if possessed, I began eating like an animal. Fistfuls of cold ham. A row of Peeps like a duck. An entire chocolate bunny. I felt disgust as the event unfolded, but I allowed it to keep happening anyway.

It was just a brief window of time. A frantic half-hour. I had done so well the rest of the day, but on Tuesday my clothes didn’t fit quite right. My face was puffy, and I fought tears in the shower as I clutched my growing rolls.

—

Earlier this month, I met a man for drinks. I set rules for myself before I even left home. I’d have one drink, no more. Under no circumstances would I have sex with this man. We were to have one drink, and then I would go home and do laundry. It didn’t matter how dimpled and charming he was. I had a plan.

Two drinks seemed so harmless, though, and I could easily do laundry after two drinks. But I still wasn’t going to have sex with him, I told myself, even as I invited him to my place for a third. When we got there, I reached for a glass, and before I could grab ice, he pawed at my hip. I looked into his gorgeous eyes and let go.

What seemed like moments later, I was in the throes of the worst sex of my life. His shaved, stubbly torso slammed against mine at spasmodic intervals. I cringed and waited for it to be over, letting that old, familiar disgust wash over me. There in that moment, I hated myself and the very thing I was doing.

After I was free, I had messages from another man, one I cared about deeply. I decided never to tell him. I had no obligation to, and what good would it do anyway? But the guilt took its toll, and bit by bit, I sabotaged the good thing we had because I couldn’t handle the weight of my secret, the uncomfortable 20 minutes I shared with a near-stranger. He’s nothing to me now. They both are.

—

Three years ago, I found myself in a flirtation with a man who was decidedly not my husband. I was mindful of the danger and careful not to put myself in situations in which temptation could overcome me. I never let myself be alone with him. I always kept innuendo on the safe side of inappropriate. I shared our flirtatious exchanges with my husband. I did everything right for months. Until one night, I didn’t.

I got drunk with the other man. I started a theoretical conversation about infidelity. I goaded him to come outside. I kissed him. I took him to my backseat.

After months of caution, of deliberate, careful action, I ruined my marriage in an hour.

—

Seven years ago, I was skiing with my sister. It’s an activity I’d enjoyed since I was five years old. I knew all the safety rules, and I’d always practiced them religiously. I was nothing if not conscientious.

We were at a popular regional destination, and due to low snowfall, we had a limited set of runs to explore. After several days on the same five or six runs, we were hopelessly bored. At one point, I started down a hill with a “fuck it” attitude. I bombed it, flying down at reckless speeds. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t care. It felt good.

Halfway down, I miscalculated, crashed, and broke my tibia inside my knee. It all happened within a 30-second window. To this day, I can’t run. I can’t wear heels. I can’t kneel or cross my legs without discomfort.

—

Here I sit amid the wreckage of so many stray hours of abandon. A belly I can’t kill. A loneliness that reeks. A body in chronic pain.

I struggle to believe that what I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while. What I do every day carries me forward, but what I do once in a while slams me back against the wall.

Our actions are not counted in time. Rather, they are the sum of their consequences. You can add and add and add, but one major subtraction undoes the whole thing.

I tell myself it matters how much restraint I exercise in everyday life, but I erase it all in moments of weakness, in episodes of willful destruction. If I build towers every day, but once in a while I knock them down, does it matter if they were built at all?

Then again, there’s Sisyphus. We think of him carrying his rock. He carries and carries forever. We know it rolls away, but what matters is that he carries it back up, again and again and always.

I may never reach my goals. I may always trudge forward, only to fly backward at the hand of weak moments. But I guess I have to keep trying, to keep pushing toward that unreachable end, because I’d rather be Sisyphus straining than an oaf sitting on a rock at the bottom of a hill.