Drawing Lines Under Stuff
Sometimes it is time to draw a line under something because a trend is over and from now on there will be a new rhythm and quality to life. It may be apparent that there is no more one can do to change an outcome. Life for many of us has morphed into a misty landscape where our steps are uncertain, our vision is unclear, and we are overwhelmed by world events. Finding something we can manage in our lives has become essential for our wellbeing. I have found a couple of empowering activities to move forward into my third age. Firstly, I am punching diabetes two into remission. Secondly, I have drawn a heavy line under my ceramic practice; I have had my swan song. Both changes are my phoenix ashes, and I am heading into a new space.
On a visit to a new doctor who has turned out to be a life saver, I received my diabetes two diagnosis. I was handed a low-carbs, high-fat in-house diet booklet, commonsensical insight about how diabetes had underpinned my poor health including failing kidney function and fatty enlarged liver. The clinic’s nurse weighed me, took my blood pressure, monitored my sugar level taken through testing blood from a finger prick, and the doctor placed me on a diabetes health-care plan that meant three free visits to the doctor and nurse where the doctor would monitor my progress over the next half-year. Progress meant I would lose weight by giving up the glucose and starch rich diet that had landed me with a life-threatening illness. An important adjunct was the book Glucose Revolution: The life-changing power of balancing your blood sugar (2022) by the biochemist Jessie Inchauspé. A book that sells itself with all the tips and hacks to beat diabetes down. I read it in a night.
Next day I bought a digital scale, a tape measure, a little notebook, and located two old photos of a younger, leaner me. My wardrobe offered up a pair of 1980’s Levi jeans that I wore through art college with their thirty-one-inch waist; the 1980s was a time to be lean and mean. People soon understand what sort of person I am when faced with adversity. I will crash and burn, have on many terrible occasions, but I come back with a fierce determination to metamorphose into someone they will not manage. Changing in the face of enforced demands is something I either do quickly or resentfully slow. Meaning I will weigh up the options and burn my bridges, turn my back on those that have abused me, and leave those places and situations where no peace can get in. Abusing my trust or taking me for granted will get you burned in my phoenix fire whether people or situations, there is no difference. So, it was with my pottery and the same with diabetes.
By my first diabetes health care plan visit I had lost eleven kilograms and given back a blood sugar remission reading. I am still dieting, the endgame being that I will change my diet for the rest of my life. I will be losing a small demon called Diabetes Dagger who weighs in at twenty-two kilograms (three stone in the old measurement) and releasing it like the Voldemort mutant was in Harry Potter’s decisive battle. I am not going back to being heavy because of sugar. Growing older well means giving up stuff that no longer suits changing situations. This makes way for other things to fill one up. I am an aspie and we have an innate sense of singularity; we go on missions. Being organized I make notes in my little purple notebook on food that was wrong, food that is right, a graph in kilograms on my declining weekly weight, another graph on my declining waist measurement in inches because men’s clothes are still sold that way. Noting important hacks like eating in order: green salad first, protein follows, then any starchy food afterwards. The Glucose Revolution (2022) is essential reading to understanding the scientific data on weight loss and reducing blood glucose.
So much of what we have learnt in our relationship to food has changed. Remember how the five food groups, including carbohydrates and fruits, were supposed to be healthy? Fruit is full of fructose the worst of sugars and all sugar by any name is not needed to be eaten. Our livers produce all the body’s glucose needs. Sweet food is addictive and younger bodies may deal with it better for a while. For decades, I have eaten sweet rolls, cakes, biscuits, and desserts over savoury choices. Of course, it began in childhood when my careless mother abrogated her household status onto her too helpful eleven-year son who cooked for an ungrateful family. Who learnt to make cakes, sweet pies, scones, and desserts to flavor an unhappy existence. Emotional eating results. Old age should cure that in anybody. Let commonsense in and live one’s later years in good health away from an overburdened health system. I will take responsibility where I can and that is empowering. So, I am heading to be under seventy kilograms with my thirty-one-inch waist back. I found giving up sugar easier than I expected, just a few days into my dieting. In the first week I lost three and a half kilograms because I stopped eating all the cereal, bread, biscuits, honey, sugar, sweetened cooking sauces, sweet fruits, dried fruits, iceblocks, and sweetened yogurt. Instead, I became a carnivore with a taste for salads.
A few weeks into my weight loss I noticed a change and fell into intermittent fasting; I did not feel hungry until the late hours of the day. I only eat in a small window of four or five hours out of a day. This allows for the postprandial state which is the complex period in the day when hormonal and inflammatory changes happen. Now, I have metabolic flexibility that means my body is using stored fat rather than needing inputs of glucose; all due to eating one large meal only. Most importantly, I do not feel hungry, my hunger hormone ghrelin has been overruled by leptin, the hormone of satiety. My dinner is made up of combinations of different meats, eggs, milk, cheese, various creams, plain Greek yogurt, herbal tea, lots of salad, high-fibre vegetables like pumpkin, celery, and zucchini. This variety of food allows me to make soups, casseroles, salad mixes, roasts, and fried dinners; fat is not my enemy. Fibre and protein are my body’s best friends. I drink cold carbonated water and a maximum of two cups of black coffee during the rest of the day. The only bread I have found I can eat is pumpernickel and then only an occasional slice. None of the other low-carbs breads appeal to my taste-buds which is why I do not drink alcohol; I have never liked the taste of beer or wine. Which is good luck for me as alcohol is concentrated glucose. An important change has been my exercise regime. I have always walked and ridden a bike, but now I do it every day, at least two hours throughout the day.
Drawing a line under my pottery practice was more difficult because I had identified with my achievements so much, I forgot there was more to me. I had suffered some horrible blows to my credibility because my autism did not let me understand the dynamics of groups and the demands of needy people. I walked blindly into some awful situations. I did not know how to defend myself. Crazymakers were ready to create all sorts of ugly situations to get me out of the way or worse still, to be compliant to their neediness. I had accusations made against me that were against my nature. I had proxy attacks from people who involved themselves with my schizophrenic mother; an injustice that I endured for forty years until her death. I was never allowed to be myself, I had to be entirely responsible to a crazy parent, narcissistic work colleagues, and self-important others whose hidden agendas left me very disturbed until I had a breakdown in 2006. Struggling on would not fix it; too many deep hurts inflicted. I even went to university where I did well, but even there some people flummoxed me and ruined the whole experience for me. I won academic awards which meant nothing, a reflection of how I felt around others. When one is down is when the users and abusers appear; some people have really hurt me. This is on top of an abusive childhood, being a victim of a stabbing attack, invasive surgery, and trusting all the wrong people. Touching clay became an overwhelming experience of tiredness. As well, the days of the artisan have always been a perilous business in the regions of Australia, as they have been diminished across the world. Some might want to argue with that, but the reality is that long term support is limited for all sorts of reasons if one considers the volatility of business. Even depending on suppliers and transporters, let alone retail outlets whether galleries or associations, became uncertain as the wider economy changed. Some people probably believed I made a fortune; they did not understand the margins involved. Frankly, it does not matter now, and I did ask for help which hit deaf ears. My achievements in pottery are in a past that had its highs followed by some terrible lows. The 1990s into the early century was my swan song in ceramics.
Time for some new stuff. Time for some rewards. Time to be myself. I have an ability to endure through some bad times and I forget that I did and can again. Both my weight-related-diabetes and my disappointing pottery career end are in the past. Both have given me heartbreak. Both have had lines drawn under them. What is emerging has always been there and is part of me, my painting. I went to art college at an exciting time. The 1980s was my delayed youth time. The earlier decade had been spoiled by a knife attack that had left me with major trauma and eventual post-traumatic stress syndrome complicated by the destruction of my family. The great hurt of being a victim of crime is that people believe you may have deserved it. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it really messed up my life. My undiagnosed autism (Asperger’s syndrome) has always disconnected me from feelings at the time of any dilemma in my life, but it catches up eventually. Life does awful things to us all. However, I am slowly recognizing the abuse was not my fault. So much to draw lines under. Far better I believe to sort stuff into their time and places and concentrate on what I can. My health is essential to ageing well, so drawing a line under my past eating patterns is energizing as a leaner body is reflected in shop windows and surprises me. My pottery was a past career but not the end of my art. This is actually the transitioning of my life into a new meaning and has the smell of excitement rising like perfumed incense smoke from ashes from a slow burning internal fire. It is all new from now on.