Allyson Reedy - Breaking the Chain: How I Banned Chain Restaurants From My Diet And Went From Full To Fulfilled

Diversion Books

A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

80 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1101

New York, New York 10011

www.DiversionBooks.com

Copyright 2011 by Allyson Reedy

All rights reserved, including the right to reproducethis book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, emailinfo@diversionbooks.com.

First Diversion Books edition September 2011.

ISBN: 978-0-9838395-6-9 (ebook)

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Part Five
Epilogue

Prologue: Why Break the Chain?

December in Colorado. It can be snowing sohard that you cant see ten feet in front of you, or it can besunny and 65 degrees. That day it was snowing. And freezing.

My bus dropped me off at Market StreetStation in downtown Denver, where I then jumped on the 16th StreetMall Ride that took me 10 blocks down the pedestrian mall to mystop. My office building was just one block from therenot normallya strenuous walk, but with the wind blowing so hard that I feltlike I was suffocating and the sub-zero air making icicles out ofmy not-quite-dry strands of hair, it wasnt exactly pleasant.

I walked past the light rail train, barelyrestraining myself from throwing my body onto the icy tracks, a laAnna Karenina.

For all practical purposes, Ive never beensuicidal. Far from it, actually. Back in seventh grade a classmatedared me to go the entirety of our Spanish class without oncesmiling. I couldnt do it. Im normally a very cheerful, happyperson for who its easier to learn a foreign language than stopsmiling. But this wasnt seventh grade; it was 7:30 a.m. and I wason my way to work, although I was fairly certain there wouldnt beany working going on.

My technical job title was Economist, and ifyou can tell me what that means, you know more than I do. Inpractice, or at least in my practice, Economists sit in a cubiclefor nine hours a day doing pretty much nothing. On some days,literally nothing.

It didnt start out that way. In thebeginning, there was work to do; mind you not 40 hours a week worthof work, but still something to pass most of the time. I worked forthe government and things changedbudgets were slashed, programswere cut and the surveys I was initially hired to analyzedisappeared. I tried to take on other responsibilities but was metwith resistance; it turned out no one wanted me to create work(which meant more work for them), and so I settled into the life oflax and gradually learned to do nothing.

Friends said they envied my job. I guess ifyoure super-stressed and working weekends you might appreciate acouple workdays of R&R. I get that. But it wasnt just a coupleof days. My periods of nothing to do stretched on for weeks, evenmonths. When I got home at night, I was exhaustedmentally andphysicallyfrom doing nothing. Rational thinking told me that thelast thing I should have felt after a day of doing absolutelynothing was tired, but tired was exactly how I felt.

A few years into my job, I started regrettingchoosing numbers over lettersI had gotten degrees in bothJournalism and Economics, but chose Economics because the researchinterested me and the money was better (as a nave 23-year-old, Ihad no idea that taking a government job would nullify both ofthese selling points). Bored at work and craving creativity, Ibegan freelance writing. The first job I got was as a restaurantwriter for a website geared toward 18-34 year olds. Getting paid toeat and write was pretty much a dream come true for me, which iswhy I still do it today. But you cant pay a mortgage freelancing,and thats why I stuck with the Economist job.

That day, I made it through the snow, avoidedslipping on sheets of ice, and settled into my cubicle. Aspredicted, I did nothing. I sat there. I went on the internet tokill time. I talked to friends and co-workers on Instant Messenger.I went to Quiznos for lunch. I dont even like Quiznos. Afterlunch, I went back to my cubicle and did nothing for five morehours.

No wait; thats not quite true. Another IQpoint flung itself out of my brain and into that vacuous,spirit-sucking emptiness that is government employment. At least Iaccomplished something for the day.

I took that same cold, icy walk back down theblock and got on the Mall Ride to Market Street Station where Icaught my bus home to the northwest suburb of Broomfield where Ilived with my husband, Peter, two pugs, Smeagol and Stella, and ourpoor little six-toed rescue dog, Gatsby. Poor Gatsby.

My mom called.

What do you want for Christmas? she askedme for the twentieth time that week. Id given her a list, but shedidnt like any of my ideas.

Money, I told her. Lots of money.

Money? Thats boring. Another wish listitem bites the dust.

I want to quit my job. I cant stand doingnothing all day. I really dont know for how much longer I can takeit.

You cant quit your job; were in the middleof a recession, she told me, as if this was news to anEconomist.

Im aware. Its too depressing, though. Iused to be so smart. Now Im dumb.

Youre not dumb. From my mother, this wasas extravagant as compliments came.

Just yesterday someone asked me what fivepercent of 140 is. I couldnt answer! I could not figure out totake ten percent and divide it by two. I could not come up withthat equation to save my life. This was true. Not ten yearsbefore, I aced calculus and now I couldnt calculate a basicpercentage.

My brain doesnt function anymore. Im soused to doing nothing all day that my mind has positivelyatrophied, I said.

Well, hang in there.

Yeah.

Bye.

The ride home took longer than usual, whatwith the eight inches of snow piling up on the freeway and peoplein their four-wheel drives trying to go 65 miles per hour andcareening into the median and all.

I thought about all of my co-commuters andwondered what they did between the 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. hours. Surelythey did something. I imagined most people did. My husband worked10-hour days at his IT job, barely stopping to eat lunch or pound acoffee. Sometimes he was so busy he couldnt even do that and camehome bleary-eyed and starving.

The man sitting across the aisle from me readhis Bible every morning. I knew this because he occasionally satnext to me, making me feel horribly guilty for reading my heathenProust. What did he do? God, maybe his job was worse than mine ifhe needed his Daily Bread to get him through the day.

The friendly woman with the 80s permsheworked for some kind of insurance company. She seemed to hate herjob, too. Or at least her co-workers. I often heard her gossipingabout that conniving bitch Debbie who didnt do any actual workand may or may not have been sleeping with the boss.

Looking around, it appeared that most of myfellow riders, like me, did some sort of work that involved sittingin front of a computer all day. I deducted this not based on theirweightwe in Colorado tend to be fairly fitbut by that empty lookin their eyes. The one that made me wonder if they were hidingpersonalities beneath their abandoned stares, or if they reallywere just fully-functioning catatonics.

The bus pulled into the parking lot, where Igot into my carmy fourth mode of transport on this five oclockcommute for whoevers countingand drove, very slowly andcarefully, home.

Peter was already there. Usually this meantthat the dogs were fed and my dinner was cooking. Wed been marriedfor nearly two years and I may have cooked dinner once in thattime. However, I cant remember what or when I would have cooked,so its entirely possible that Im lying and Ive never onceprepared a meal in the entire course of our married life. Peterdoes the cooking and I do the eating.