From Rhoda to Yoda

It was recently disclosed that Valerie Harper faces the terminal diagnosis of a rare and incurable form of brain cancer, leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.  Universally remembered for portraying Rhoda Morgenstern, the down-on-herself best friend to Mary Tyler Moore's plucky heroine (first on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and, later, its subsequent hit spin-off Rhoda), Valerie represented the "real woman", the sort of "victorious loser" (one reviewer's label) who struggled to keep-up with a more "together" working career gal like Mary.  Being the younger sister to a gorgeous, smoldering, brilliant female --someone frequently compared by friends and colleagues to Angelia Jolie and Kate Winslet-- I know quite well what it is to feel the role of "sidekick".  If she is alike to Alec Baldwin, I am mildly capable brother Billy --at best.  Rhoda was sardonic and creative --brandishing a rotating collection of signature headscarves-- but not "wacky" to the point of gracelessness.  Famous for her chronic onscreen dieting, Harper divulged to People magazine this week that she is giving herself "room to grieve... the space to be sad or angry" until it passes and she can "get back to eating ice cream" (which she's been doing by the pint).  Indeed, despite --or because of-- future uncertainties and a bleak, limited timetable, Harper is embracing her newfound liberties, including the rare advice from physicians to put on weight:  "Men have never said that to me!" she discloses.  "I don't think of dying.  I think of being here now."

I have asked myself on numerous occasions, "What will it take for you to act on your plan for fuller health?"  I have never been one to leap into a pool, however warm, and am similarly inching my way forward in recovery.  I am not yet "eating ice cream by the pint", but I have maintained and slowly increased a caloric load once prescribed when I submitted myself two winters ago to a local psychiatric center for monitoring and treatment.  Admittedly, that was an alcohol and drug recovery center, where the resident dietician kept the requirements fairly lean --but it was there that I learned to eat lunch, and not just, say, half a banana, for the first time in my adult life (away from strict supervised feedings, naturally).  Every day I drink with my late-afternoon meal an Orgain nutrition shake (think organic Ensure) and have reduced physical activity to a moderate number of local errands and brief evening session on my mother's pedal bike (twenty minutes as compared to an hour or more in previous months).  Of course, there is still not a set of stairs I encounter without craving to scale them (an OCD habit), and I continue with sets of lunges at intermittent periods.  I also have gone from weighing myself every morning (something I came to dread as my weight has shifted) to maybe once a week (for accountability and general reference).  I would like to think that, according to the stages of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a psychiatric approach I am only somewhat familiar with, I am past the "contemplative" period of preparation and immersed in the "action" phase --in which change is experienced and pursued.  Yes, I am taking my time relinquishing negative habits.  But it is confusing and frightening, especially when one receives competing, contrasting recommendations.  (For example, some present in my life encourage physical activity for its therapeutic benefits, while others discourage any and all exercise until at a higher BMI.)  It is enough to leave me with the conflicted impression that I am simultaneously succeeding and failing in nearly all endeavors.  If only it were as simple as Yoda's advice to Luke in the misty swamps of Dagobah (so firm and transparent were his words):  "Do.  Or do not.  There is no try."