The Melancholy Baby and the Prom Queen

I was a big melancholy baby Saturday. My daughter went to her first prom and is seeming so grown up. She looked beautiful in her dress, with the hair curled. My little tom boy all dressed up with heels and everything. I helped her with some of the preparations including sitting at the salon while she had her hair done. We took pictures outside and when she finally left with her boyfriend to go off to his house for pictures, I was so deep in a blue state of mind. I swallowed all my feelings along with the need to swallow some chocolate. I had laughed earlier at a friend who posted on facebook that after helping her duaghter with all the preparations for prom, she was going to need a few cocktails. I thought how bad can it be. Well, I did finally understand where she was coming from. After Carrie and Camil left, I took off to the grocery store to pick up groceries for the week as well as the things for our son's 12th birthday party on Sunday. I walked around the store in a daze and all I could think about was that I needed chocolate. I was doing pretty good until the end and went back and grabbed a couple of large bags of M&Ms (for the party, of course) and checked out. When I got to the car, I grabbed a bag of the M&Ms (peanut butter kind) and ripped them open and starting popping them like pills on the way home from the store. "Medicating" myself with food is the old me. I could not control the emotions I was feeling and thus couldn't control my hand to mouth action. I did stop myself but not until the damage was done and it was not the last time because I did dig into them a little bit later in the evening when I felt the wave of emotions coming over me as she was going to an after party and staying the night at a friends house. Thank goodness this happened as I am at goal and not in the midst of the acute phase of the program. I got right back on track Sunday morning and did not touch an M&M or any of the fudge-iced brownie cake that I got for Steven's birthday cake (okay, aside from the one little lick of icing off my finger after I served the cake to the boys). So the new me on a diet is back and atoning for the bad Saturday but it just really goes to show how food is tied to emotion and up until that point, I had dealt well with other emotions but was not prepared to deal with the one that I felt on Saturday. I will have to make sure I am prepared next time because I'm sure with the kids getting older, it is not going to be the last.