Full House

Today I was sitting in my weight-related 12-step meeting listening to a share when suddenly I realized I felt full. And I don't mean full of food. I mean that for the first time in my life - 49 years - I don't feel like I absolutely need something that I don't have.

I don't mean to make a big deal out of nothing but remember, I'm Jewish, the child of Holocaust survivors, number six out of seven daughters. Want is my middle name. I was born fighting my way to the top of the family, born fighting for food from a mother who never bought enough, and apparently born ready to buy everything else.

But lately there is calm. I take no credit for this other than after what I hope to have been my last compulsive shopping trip ever, I came home with a set of filled bags hardly knowing what I'd bought and hid them in my closet and realized I was very sick. I then walked around the house with my camera and photographed the evidence of my shopping sickness: too much furniture in every room (because one day I might move into a house twice as big and I'll need it); the closet filled with empty bags, each with a receipt in it (because I might return everything); books piled everywhere, even duplicates; my kids, turned into compulsive shoppers themselves, toys everywhere in their rooms; my living room now a storage warehouse, filled with all the paintings I never put up, an antique mirror collection, and enough furniture for two living rooms. The wreckage of my past.

It's just been about 28 days right now. Baby steps. But full is good. Full is something I never felt before. Full means that I might be somewhere near gratitude, and that sounds like a pretty good place to live.