1.23.2014

Welcome to My Banquet

Yesterday's post was commented on by a fellow blogger.  She wrote:

Great post. So very true. We don't even realize what we are doing at times. It's like being a hamster running in a circle. It's a part of the recovery to recognize and address our destructive, self-sabotaging ways. Even at that, we have to still fight our demons and sometimes they occasionally win. As time passes, we get more wins than losses and dig our way out of that hell. Here's to being in charge. Take care.

I wanted to share that in case it struck a cord with anyone else.  Love the part about the wins and losses because it is so true. It takes real grit and courage to get those first few victories and did I mention vicious determination? But after the momentum starts rolling uphill it is slightly easier to keep moving in that direction as long as you don't stop too often for those dumb excuses. I know this by experience.  It is my life. Thanks Myra for a great insight into the life of someone just getting those victories started again!

Watching the Today Show this morning I saw their book club segment. Author Nancy Horan was being highlighted as was her book Under the Wide Starry Sky, a fiction/non fiction mix about author Robert Louis Stephenson who wrote Treasure Island and other well known pieces. So as not to bore you I will get to the point, the writer penned a line for Stephenson's character that goes like this:

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to the banquet of consequences.

Oh, oh, oh - I love it.  It reminds me of my favorite line in The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, "Sooner or later, everybody's bill comes due."

I guess this means I am a big believer in consequences.  This awareness of consequences goes all the way back to my childhood when we would listen to record albums at my grandpa's house and he loved the spiritual quartet music of groups like the Melody Boys. A line from one of the quartet songs says, "When you are tempted and in doubt, be sure that your sins are gonna find you out".  Yeah I think it was engrained in me from early on that there are consequences for our actions.  Even physics teaches us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Sins, Overdue Bills, Huge Banquets, "I'll take, what happens to people who live unhealthy, for $500 Alex." (That was a reference to the game show Jeopardy - if you don't get it, never mind)

So here I am at the banquet of consequences and I notice when I sit down I am served what the host has prepared, it is predetermined and I don't have any choices.  Not like the buffet where I can pick and chose and make my own creation. It's the Nightmare Banquet. I didn't sign up for this!  You can't make me eat this. I don't even like this! I feel like the glutton with the rosy cheeks and toothy grin.  Surely there has been a mistake - I thought the hostess loved me, adored me, cherished me.  Why would she serve me this crap.  I must be sitting in the wrong seat.  Come to think of it this chair is a bit tiny.

But no, these are my consequences, created by my own hand. What's done is done, and here I sit. In other words, I can run but I can't hide. I am both the cruel hostess and the disappointed guest. I have acknowledged my circumstances and am resigned to my duty. I begin to address the meal, sometimes with vigor and sometimes with the begrudging petulance of a child, choking down stuffed crow.

I think this is a great reminder for me to be vigilant in my choices. I cannot undo the banquet already created but, I am today creating tomorrow's banquet of consequences, every moment, every bite, every walk. I should be the loving hostess, making choices that will thrill my honored guest, not throwing frogs in her stew. Now that may be a lovely frog - but the guest does not want it for dinner.

As I near 10,000 views of my blog, a humbling milestone, I remember when I started this several years ago. I want to say a very heartfelt thank you to everyone who visits, reads, comments and cares that I am sitting at the banquet table of consequences and I really don't like the food so much.  Your presence here makes the bitterness of the meal a little sweeter and the frustration of my circumstance a lot less sad, lonely, overwhelming and well, frustrating. If I have to participate in the banquet - at least I'm not alone.

I am reminded of another time in my youth when my parents made me sit at the table and eat all my English peas.  I still have a prejudice against those things even though I have come to like the taste.  Here I am at the banquet and I know I have to stay until I have devoured each of these consequences of my unhealthy living.  With that, I will stop typing and pick up my fork with determination and zeal. Would someone please pass the hot sauce?

That's all ~ THANKS Y'ALL!

5 comments:

  1. I felt honored that my comment hit home with you. We never know when something we say will hit a home run with someone else. That's the beauty of blogging. We get so much from the others and our community is very encouraging and supportive. This is my third time at the banquet of consequences. I don't want to repeat this bad taste in my mouth. It is especially noxious because I created it. What was I thinking? Be careful out there today.

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  2. You did hit a home run and do! I'm sorry for your three-peat but I'm glad to know you are around to give some encouragement!

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  3. Love the idea of a banquet of consequences! Don't we all hate to be force-fed our own creations. I am in total agreement. Great post!

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