Fiction, all fiction

It's so hard to remind myself, in the moment, how big my commitment to health is. I have one bite of cupcake--one quarter, which is allowed on my plan--and I go completely insane. Needless to say, my play went to the wayside and my food addiction completely took over my life.

Lately I've been working on what fiction really means, and reminding myself of its definition when I experience it throughout my life. Books, movies, tv shows--they are all works of fiction, representations not of what life could be, but of what we wish life was. Mostly I've been focusing on romantic relationships in fiction, but today I've been thinking about food in fiction.

The movie "Laws of Attraction" is a perfect example of the ridiculous fictitiousness of both romance and food use. On one side, you have a gorgeous woman, mid-thirties, who wears cute little outfits and looks perfect in everything, and yet has an overt addiction to sugar and processed foods, which we all know are weight-gain foods. There is even a line in the movie about how sugar is a crutch and how the character is trying to stay away from it. Later on, sweets are used as a plot vehicle, as her eating of some brownies that he made her shows that she is coming around to their relationship together, proving to be a central theme to the film and to her character.
On the other side, you have this tumultuous romance between her and another equally good looking man, who also pays no attention to his diet in the film, and yet is, of course, remarkably good looking. I can tell you as a fact that neither Pierce Brosnan or Julianne Moore eat as many sweets, processed and greasy foods as their characters do in the film--both stick to strict diet and exercise regimes that make their bodies look at their peak and make their careers fly to the top of the charts.

The romance between them is also absolutely ridiculous--they meet as opposing council in this dramatic divorce case, which in reality can be dramatic but hardly like this, and immediately war against each other while simultaneously fighting this enormous attraction to each other. On a case they are fighting each other on, they go to Ireland and attend this festival where they get totally hammered and then get married as part of the festival. Through the manipulations of other side characters and their warring professional lives, they find love and get married for reals at the end of the movie--and live happily ever after.

Of course, I always want to believe these dual fantasies that you can eat whatever junk you want and have Julianne Moore's body and that you can have this dramatic and passionate relationship with almost a complete stranger, who immediately becomes both your enemy and your lover, sparking a suddenly riveting life story, which of course ends in nothing but marital and professional bliss. And so, I am turning away from this fictional cycle of death, and trying to remind myself at all times of how absolutely absurd these fictitious lies are, and what can happen in the real world.

The Real World:
1) A strict nutritional eating plan and a thorough and committed exercise regime creates a beautiful and healthy body. Junk food makes you fat--sugar without nutrition attached to it (aka, not fruit) increases your insulin, and therefore your fat intake and retention. Processed food is also nutrition-free fat and calories, and slows down your metabolism as its unnatural properties are very difficult for your body to digest. This is how it really works, and only those with absolutely ridiculously fast metabolism can process junk foods within their bodies and not gain weight. I am not one of these people, so I must abstain. I did not last night, and I regret it. Deeply.

2) Love does not come into your life with trumpets, guns blazing, tempers rising, and passions flaring. You meet someone--a friend of a friend, a guy at a bar, someone picking out their produce--and you flirt. You exchange numbers, you go on a date, and fall in love as you get to know each other better, and see things that you like. Soulmates can exist, I think, but you have to be patient and hope that in your lifetime, you find him or her. Love at first sight is extraordinarily rare, and actually seems like a bad idea, since in reality relationships are a lot of work, and monogamy isn't exactly biologically predisposed--it is a choice to be with the same person for the rest of your life, and you have to put effort and energy into continuing to make that work, no matter how much you loved each other when you first saw each other across a crowded room. Life gets in the way: you continue your job whether you fall in love or not, you hopefully continue your friendships, you continue to have your family in your life (welcome or not, or maybe you don't), you continue to have your financial situation, continue to be in debt and continue to be in a crappy job you can't get out of. Life's daily toll occurs with or without love or romance in your life. And men aren't romantic, they aren't trained to expect someone to come into their life and take it over. And do we as women even really like that narrative? That your life is really nothing until someone else, man or woman or whatever, comes into it and just makes it glow?

3) your "glow", the life force that keeps you wanting to be alive and enjoying your days as you travel through them must come from yourself and your own choices. To be happy with your choices and happy with yourself and your life as you have made it is what makes joy expound from your life. The people you surround yourself with, what kind of job you have and how you work at it, the experiences that you have and the life that you share with others is what determines joy, NOT that you have someone else in it. Multitudes of people make your life an exciting and wonderful one--your family and how you interact with them, your friends and how you interact with them, your pets and how you interact with them. It's not all romance romance romance! And sometimes you marry for love, and you get a divorce, because the reality didn't work. It was too hard, and you didn't want to work at it. Once you got over that first initial infatuation, you didn't care enough for the person to be selfless for them. Your parents or peers when you were growing up screwed you over emotionally speaking, and you can't communicate or don't know how, or don't know what it means to share your life with someone, and too many negative experiences occur, and you can't fix what's broken anymore. It happens! I have been fortunate enough to have avoided this heartache, and only have the heartache of being perennially single. It has its own issues, believe me, but there is little I can do about it.

4) Fiction is fun. It's great to experience something completely, or even slightly, unrealistic and revel in its possibilities. Love at first sight. Life-changing decisions that happen in an instant. Happenstance encounters that turn everything around. Sometimes these things happen in real life, and that's great for those who experience them. Sometimes these things happen in real life, and turn out very, very, very badly. But it's nice to walk into a movie theater and experience something absolutely fantastic, by every definition of the word. It personally gives me hope that something similar, but much more realistic, can actually happen in my own life. It stretches the imagination, and gives me fodder for my daily, well hourly, daydreams that riddle my life and make it rich, even if within my own mind. So watch! Read! Enjoy! But remember: it's all only FICTION.