Oprah?

Perhaps it could not have happened at a better time, Comcast finally realizing that after taking away cable channels from basic services, that they had still left the high-def feeds hidden in the channels. I didn’t need that extra excuse to be sucked into hours of tv every day, and now I feel a break. This morning when I found that they were “scrambled” I was actually productive! I read, I cleaned the house, I gave the dog a haircut and bath, vacuumed and now I’m settling down to work on some academic mumbo-jumbo.

Good step in the right direction, yes?

Unfortunately, I can waste just as much time on basic channels as I can on cable. Sure, there is no House Hunters or What Not to Wear, no Bobby Flay or Duff Goldman. No more Dance Your Ass Off (but I think I can watch those all on the computer anyway).

I’m left with traditional programming. The Today Show in the morning. Rachael Ray and Ellen in the afternoon. Sometimes even Oprah.

Now, I feel like I have to preface the fact that I’m not a mainstream audience. I’m not the typical woman who gets sucked into these shows because they deal with issues that fit my life. They don’t. But I like the spectacle. It’s like picking up Cosmo magazine and getting a chuckle.

I’m with Denis Leary, here. I really didn’t want to like Oprah. In fact, the show that really messed with my head a few days ago was completely laughable in it’s false-seriousness and melodrama. Yet I watched, half way, reading and studying as I drowned it out in the background (a skill mastered by 28 years of heavy TV watching that my husband cannot fathom).

And I heard it. Over and over she says, “I thought for years I had a weight issue. It’s not a weight issue. It’s a love issue.” She founds her change of weight on an “imbalance” in her life. I shake my head and grumble “Yeah. You love the food and you can afford it all!”

But then I think about it a minute. I want to say she’s wrong, that it IS food and not love, but I’m busy thinking what has changed for me. What has altered for me the last two years, the 25 lbs I’ve gained back and can’t seem to shake.

I know the easy answer is the life changes. A move cross-country and then an explosive and destructive series of difficult decisions and actions. My chance to regain my life has poor foundation, a lot of love and no money. I hate myself and everything about where I live. Where I’m at. I have three amazing things: El, my dream job and Sadie. But I’m poor. I’m unhappy. I’m trying so hard to be productive and carry things on the way I had, but I don’t have control anymore.

My imbalance is a lack of personal power. When I lost all the weight I was at the height of power. I made great money, I was at the top of my game, got my MA and drove my car quickly from place to place making the city mine. I lost all of that independence and progress. My environment was never my ideal, but it fit and allowed me to care for myself in a way I never understood until now.

When I lost that stability and power I drank to make it better. I ate to feel better. Both El and I experienced the same thing, I think. Life was drowning us and we were too tired to keep trying to surface. We let it come. We let it wash over us in hopes that at some point we would wash ashore someplace better. Have the energy to fix it.

We’re unhappy because of the weight but can’t seem to muster the energy to push beyond weekend drinking and tasty treats because our days are stressful. El and I feed off of one another. We comfort and medicate.

Thinking about the future, about paying off our debt but being in this financial purgatory of sorts puts things in perspective. The very real possibility that in two years we could have a house and be on the first major step to independence and personal power makes me giddy. Nurturing a garden and acquiring puppies. Going back to school and starting on a PhD (which I had all but given up on, honestly). Living comfortably enough to travel and make friends. Even to consider having children. I need this personal power. I need this kind of goal keeping. I need to hurl my entire body toward the future to handle the present.

And that all starts with a smaller waistline. Shedding pounds like skin, finding myself renewed and strong underneath.