Ok so instead of embellishing 'over' the issue...which I tend to do, let me get straight down to the nitty gritty. As I have already mentioned my one vice in weight loss is carrot cake...with loads of icing and a steaming hot chocolate mocha's... with full cream milk, I must add.
Though I don't know exactly why...there is something about going to a funky modern cafe and sitting in the window seat watching the world go by as other people go busily about their perfect lives...that calms me especially when mine is not so perfect.
My husband rings up and uses his usual manipulative and un-relenting tirades, I am feeling harassed, guilty, like its ALL my fault, even defeated, so I go to the cafe...
I find out my house is going to sell for a lot less then what we had first been quoted, I am scared, frustrated, I go to the cafe...
I am wracked in debt and the credit card companies come knocking, I have no idea where the next minimum payment is going to come from, I am scared, overwhelmed, so I go to the cafe...
I get on the scales and the digit hasn't moved an inch I am feeling upset, frustrated, and again defeated so I go to the cafe...
I am behind in my studies...so far behind that it is hopeless to think that I will ever be able to catch up and I know its going to be another term I have failed, I am overwhelmed, again defeated, feeling like its all out of control, so I go to the cafe...
As soon as my life seems somehow out of my own control, Like I am falling into a bottomless pit and there is no-one there to catch me, I am alone, afraid, defeated, resigned to my fate, I go to the cafe.
It is usually always carrot cake and a hot mocha very rarely do I deter from my source. I don't exactly know why?. In fact many a time, I have gone to the cafe and they haven't had carrot cake available so I have walked out! That's how important it is for me. I have always liked carrot cake it would have to be my favourite cake in the whole wide world and have only recently discovered mochas as an alternative to coffee.
I started eating carrot cake after one of my very first jobs started going sour. I was 17 and working at an Specialist Eye Clinic with stuffy doctors and 'catty' female work mates. It was the kind of environment where if you weren't in the 'click' you were ousted at every opportunity and I just didn't seem to fit into their 'company culture'. Everything I did was wrong...even when I tried to use initiative and get ahead of my work, I got chastised by my supervisors...They would jump down my throat whenever I did anything wrong but never even acknowledge when I did most things RIGHT. This i believe was the start of my 'breaking' as a person and an optimistic visionary. You see...I had just returned from an amazing journey travelling solo around the world and spending 6 months in Africa voluntarily teaching in a school in one of the slum areas there but arriving back in Australia and starting work at this place in particular... from the first day, I felt boxed in with their expectations but the problem was; no matter I hard I tried I just never could live up to them. Needless, to say I hated every minute of it and every day I would go down to the nearby Hospital cafeteria and purchase...yes you guessed it Carrot Cake.
Lately, I don't turn to chocolate...or perhaps I do in a way as there is chocolate syrup in a mocha...But in my head, chocolate is WRONG WRONG WRONG! If I eat chocolate, even a bite, I kick myself so hard..."Your a stupid idiot Flab you have just undone all the good you are trying to do"...As much as eating chocolate would probably send me straight back to the cafe for carrot cake and a mocha hehehe! I guess in this I am guilty of having a deprivation mentality. For me trips to the cafe have become a necessary evil. I justify cake cause hey...it's flour and grated carrot...ok it probably has quite a bit of sugar and butter but at least it gives the illusion of 'healthy'.
One thing I do need to mention...I usually don't have a whole piece of carrot cake...Oh NO I couldn't do that! I usually have the top half...with the icing. and give the rest to my kids or whoever happens to be with me at the time...I guess that's where the lap-band kicks in. Cause a full 1/12th of cake fills me like a main meal in-fact even the half of the piece fills me. It is rare that I EVER have a whole piece especially when I have the mocha as well. But, on closer thought I don't think it is so much the mocha and carrot cake as just the environment, and illusion of feeling like all is well with the world when I am sitting at the cafe...Its a reminder for me of another time long before...
Probably THE happiest times of my life... at university, 8 years ago, when, in-between subjects, I would meet my small select group of university mates at the on-campus cafe. There we would have a smoke and drink coffee occasionally share a slice of something (if we could afford it that day)...We would joke, laugh, tease each other, dream of our wonderful futures...They accepted me and I them. We were a strange bunch really, a cigar smoking blond, a recently out gay man, a Chinese exchange student, and the coloured girl with identity issues...ME! But that time of my life was pretty well perfect. I was young, full of vision, and passion I was going to change the world. I wasn't pretending...just being myself and doing great at UNI...straight 'A' student actually. I even got an invitation to the 'Golden Key International Honours Society'. The world was my oyster and I was going to do and experience everything. Its funny really, its the only time in my whole life where I can remember that I actually felt completely 'Happy'...sitting outside that same old cafe with all my friends smoking, drinking coffee and feeling complete. I wish I was that girl again...but adulthood and pain reared its ugly head. I realise I can never go back...just forward and its up to me to make the most of what I have now which does include two very important new additions in my life...my kids.
So I cant pinpoint exactly WHY carrot cake and a mocha. But I believe going to the cafe is more of a 'lifestyle' thing A. It gets me and the kids out of the house; B. It makes me feel like all is ok with the world and ALL is going to be ok with me; C. and the Carrot Cake they make Is damn yummy!
Though I don't know exactly why...there is something about going to a funky modern cafe and sitting in the window seat watching the world go by as other people go busily about their perfect lives...that calms me especially when mine is not so perfect.
My husband rings up and uses his usual manipulative and un-relenting tirades, I am feeling harassed, guilty, like its ALL my fault, even defeated, so I go to the cafe...
I find out my house is going to sell for a lot less then what we had first been quoted, I am scared, frustrated, I go to the cafe...
I am wracked in debt and the credit card companies come knocking, I have no idea where the next minimum payment is going to come from, I am scared, overwhelmed, so I go to the cafe...
I get on the scales and the digit hasn't moved an inch I am feeling upset, frustrated, and again defeated so I go to the cafe...
I am behind in my studies...so far behind that it is hopeless to think that I will ever be able to catch up and I know its going to be another term I have failed, I am overwhelmed, again defeated, feeling like its all out of control, so I go to the cafe...
As soon as my life seems somehow out of my own control, Like I am falling into a bottomless pit and there is no-one there to catch me, I am alone, afraid, defeated, resigned to my fate, I go to the cafe.
It is usually always carrot cake and a hot mocha very rarely do I deter from my source. I don't exactly know why?. In fact many a time, I have gone to the cafe and they haven't had carrot cake available so I have walked out! That's how important it is for me. I have always liked carrot cake it would have to be my favourite cake in the whole wide world and have only recently discovered mochas as an alternative to coffee.
I started eating carrot cake after one of my very first jobs started going sour. I was 17 and working at an Specialist Eye Clinic with stuffy doctors and 'catty' female work mates. It was the kind of environment where if you weren't in the 'click' you were ousted at every opportunity and I just didn't seem to fit into their 'company culture'. Everything I did was wrong...even when I tried to use initiative and get ahead of my work, I got chastised by my supervisors...They would jump down my throat whenever I did anything wrong but never even acknowledge when I did most things RIGHT. This i believe was the start of my 'breaking' as a person and an optimistic visionary. You see...I had just returned from an amazing journey travelling solo around the world and spending 6 months in Africa voluntarily teaching in a school in one of the slum areas there but arriving back in Australia and starting work at this place in particular... from the first day, I felt boxed in with their expectations but the problem was; no matter I hard I tried I just never could live up to them. Needless, to say I hated every minute of it and every day I would go down to the nearby Hospital cafeteria and purchase...yes you guessed it Carrot Cake.
Lately, I don't turn to chocolate...or perhaps I do in a way as there is chocolate syrup in a mocha...But in my head, chocolate is WRONG WRONG WRONG! If I eat chocolate, even a bite, I kick myself so hard..."Your a stupid idiot Flab you have just undone all the good you are trying to do"...As much as eating chocolate would probably send me straight back to the cafe for carrot cake and a mocha hehehe! I guess in this I am guilty of having a deprivation mentality. For me trips to the cafe have become a necessary evil. I justify cake cause hey...it's flour and grated carrot...ok it probably has quite a bit of sugar and butter but at least it gives the illusion of 'healthy'.
One thing I do need to mention...I usually don't have a whole piece of carrot cake...Oh NO I couldn't do that! I usually have the top half...with the icing. and give the rest to my kids or whoever happens to be with me at the time...I guess that's where the lap-band kicks in. Cause a full 1/12th of cake fills me like a main meal in-fact even the half of the piece fills me. It is rare that I EVER have a whole piece especially when I have the mocha as well. But, on closer thought I don't think it is so much the mocha and carrot cake as just the environment, and illusion of feeling like all is well with the world when I am sitting at the cafe...Its a reminder for me of another time long before...
Probably THE happiest times of my life... at university, 8 years ago, when, in-between subjects, I would meet my small select group of university mates at the on-campus cafe. There we would have a smoke and drink coffee occasionally share a slice of something (if we could afford it that day)...We would joke, laugh, tease each other, dream of our wonderful futures...They accepted me and I them. We were a strange bunch really, a cigar smoking blond, a recently out gay man, a Chinese exchange student, and the coloured girl with identity issues...ME! But that time of my life was pretty well perfect. I was young, full of vision, and passion I was going to change the world. I wasn't pretending...just being myself and doing great at UNI...straight 'A' student actually. I even got an invitation to the 'Golden Key International Honours Society'. The world was my oyster and I was going to do and experience everything. Its funny really, its the only time in my whole life where I can remember that I actually felt completely 'Happy'...sitting outside that same old cafe with all my friends smoking, drinking coffee and feeling complete. I wish I was that girl again...but adulthood and pain reared its ugly head. I realise I can never go back...just forward and its up to me to make the most of what I have now which does include two very important new additions in my life...my kids.
So I cant pinpoint exactly WHY carrot cake and a mocha. But I believe going to the cafe is more of a 'lifestyle' thing A. It gets me and the kids out of the house; B. It makes me feel like all is ok with the world and ALL is going to be ok with me; C. and the Carrot Cake they make Is damn yummy!
2 comments:
Flab,
I too have a carrot cake comfort thing! My best friend from grade school and I have perfected the making of carrot cake over the years and now that we're apart so much (different universities!), we make it nearly every time we get back together. Oomph! It's how we unwind when we're together--carrot cake and a pot of very sweet tea!
Carrot cake really is the best cake...with all that oil and eggs and butter and sugary cream cheesey frosting...
oh yum...you are making my mouth water just thinking about it...hehehehe I am glad to see I am not the ony one who adores carrot cake.
:)
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