Abigail M. Schilling

I was leaving work today, thinking about how pretty soon I was going to get to eat some food and how food never sounded so good before in all my life and what exactly I was going to eat when I realized why I was so hungry.

Meat.

I hadn't had meat in ... I started to count back the days, calculating what I had eaten ... there was Krispy Kreme at work this morning, yesterday I had that piece of pizza, we had the shower food on Saturday, man those were good chocolate-covered strawberries, pizza Friday night, and Starbucks Starbucks Starbucks. What was Thursday? I can't even remember Thursday. So, huh, I can't remember when I last had meat, or vegetables, or anything really.

One of my co-workers started telling me about how I can go to the store and get a chicken breast and saute it and have it with some salad greens and I'd be good to go.

Except for the fact that that includes going to the store. I DON'T GO TO THE STORE.

Over six weeks ago I quit grocery shopping. My life was getting busy and I decided that grocery shopping was just too much. It's hard for me, all the different choices, all the necessities, all the sauces. And besides, it costs money, and as Mr. Federal Perkins reminded me today, I owe all my money to them. So I quit. It was alright, I mean, we went to Yosemite and I lived off that food for a couple weeks. Then Carolyn had her senior recital and I lived off that food (and cake) for another week.

And then I gave up on food. It also became too much work.

Every once in a while I would get really hungry and I would have to find chicken nuggets or Jack in the Box's Asian Chicken Salad or a turkey sandwich from Quizno's. I also had fruit smoothies at least once a week. Last week I even found some frozen chicken in the freezer that I bought at Trader Joe's two months ago and I made Jeni cook it. And then I ate it.

I think I'm starting to pull out of it. I'm hungry more often. And when I'm hungry I go looking for food. And I'm trying to get the meat at least twice a week. And pretty soon here I'll be introducing vegetables back into the diet.

I left work five hours ago and I still haven't eaten. And now, when I'm hungry, I don't want brownies or cupcakes or even banana bread. I want meat and vegetables. I couldn't even think of any quick close fast food that would satisfy. Now Cheesecake Factory takeout? Definitely an option. But I'd have to GO THERE. And that just seems so hard for me.

Being hungry is such a victory for me. Having my stomach not in a knot all 24 hours of the day is such a victory. And I'll take the victories as they come. But I have to conquer food back again before I can conquer back the store. And it's all kind of circular.

It'd help a lot if I hadn't lost my debit card AGAIN.