The Sweet Spot

In this year of no, this year in which I try to listen to the quiet nudges and helpful suspicions, when I get out my soul broom and pay attention to what I see under the dust bunnies, I’m learning a thing or two.

No big surprise.

I’ll be saying no to something every month for the next twelve, and although I don’t have the whole year mapped out, not even February for crying out loud, I am trusting the answers will come. The student is ready, so the teacher (please, God) will appear.

Here we go, Miss No Sugar January.

Even before the filly was out of the gate, I was making excuses. “I can’t possibly remove all sugar from my diet, so let’s get realistic. No desserts. No sweet snacks. But my morning granola bar is fine.”

I dubbed the month No Sweets, No Treats, and in a show of solidarity, Matt decided to join me.

For the first two or three days, I was a bit grumpy. I wasn’t hungry. Just grumpy.

Matt felt it, too. We didn’t talk about it much. We just ratcheted up the kind words to cover the crabbies and kept on our way.

Going back to work helped. Real kids with real problems and real teachers needing real support put my sugar issue in perspective.

Something curious happened around day seven, something I’d been hoping for. I began to notice. It started at the grocery store. I was feeling pretty good about No Sweets, No Treats, confident I could do this for another three weeks without much skin off my nose. As I wheeled my cart up and down the aisles, I took a little time to read labels.

And what I saw wasn’t terribly shocking. I listen to NPR and I read Time.com and I gravitate towards conversations about Weight Watchers and personal trainers. So I knew about the sugar in my Kashi granola bars and my 80-calorie cup of Greek yogurt.

But I didn’t know about the sugar in my Nature’s Path Organic Flax Plus Raisin Bran (an excellent source of Ala Omega-3, so the box says). Or the sugar in catsup, pickles, and salad dressing.

Or the sugar in my vitamins.

This was an illuminating trip to the grocery store.

So right there in the cereal aisle, I prayed, maybe even a little bit whispery, instead of only in my head (sorry fellow shoppers). I looked into that place behind my breast bone where I’m pretty sure God has set up a classroom, and I asked, “This stuff, too? I should say good-bye?”

He said, “Let’s give it a go.”

Since that day, I have consciously avoided sugar, and not just the obvious stuff.

The result? I feel free.

How can this be?

I mean, let’s get real. A cupcake sounds nice. I want my girlfriends to take me out for pancakes on my birthday. I’d like to scoop mounds of ice cream into two bowls, one for me and one for Matt, to dig into while we watch the NFL playoffs. Earlier this week, I had an honest-to-God craving for a Blue Bird Bake Shop brownie, just some straight-up chocolate. Had it been in front of me, I’m pretty confident I would have inhaled it in two bites.

I want these things.

But then again, I don’t. I really don’t. When I think about how I feel when I eat sugar, a hollow, shaky headache descends, like a hangover. Or the morning after.

It’s as though stepping away from the immediate gratification of sweets allows me to see them more fully, the quick bliss of the taste, yes, but also the aftermath.

My boss called me the other day. “Melissa,” she said, “there’s a leftover donut in the admissions office. Tell me not to eat it.”

I replied, “Ma’am, you are not going to eat that donut, and it’s not because you’re worried about weight gain. It’s because if you eat the donut, you will feel terrible.”

I hung up the phone and sat quietly for a moment. I wondered what was happening to me.

What’s even more unfathomable is the amount of space in my head. Here’s what I mean. In a typical day, I think about food about as often as a teenage boy thinks about sex. It’s a constant roar of planning, buying, storing, preparing, and then, oh joy, the actual eating, during which, I have to admit, I’m often thinking about the planning, buying, storing ... and eventual eating.

It’s a food cacophony. Loud and persistent and constant. This is not unlike what my friends who are addicted to alcohol say.

Three weeks into very low sugar, I have to say that the roar has morphed into an intermittent hum.

How in the world?

Jesus said this:

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Friends, that’s the only answer I’ve got. That the no is not a difficult burden at all. That no makes room for learning, for gentleness, for rest.

My friend Lindsey told me (a la Gretchen Ruben) that there are two types of people: abstainers and moderators. She wondered if I might be an abstainer.

I instantly panicked. “Lindsey thinks I’m an addict. Maybe I’m an addict. I think I’m an addict.”

I muscled the thoughts aside and went on my way. But Lindsey’s suggestion has been tugging at me. I think about how I don’t eat meat. Or drink alcohol. I’m in the midst of a no-sugar experiment, and I’m about to remove another eleven somethings from my world.

At the end of the year, will there be anything left of me at all?

The gentle voice replies, “Yes. Oh, yes. More than you can possibly imagine.”

I have more to think on this abstainer business, but now, this is enough: I am a woman who is finding freedom in the no.

I’m ready to say this, too … in February, I’m cutting the umbilical cord to my phone. In the words of the cutest man I know, “Ye gads!”

I honestly can’t wait to see what happens.