Hungry Hungry Hippos

So I know I may be dating myself here but here goes, Does anyone else remember when this game first came out, Hungry Hungry Hippos, I was like12 and I instantly liked the game and related to the name. That was a great name for myself and the feeling I had all the time, I was always hungry and coming from a large family that was financially and emotionally challenged , one of seven children I felt like one of those Hippos on the game board, that when the food ( marbles) was placed on the table we all had to quickly grab it and claim it and if we took food and put it on our plate, we had better eat it. Not a pretty visual and remember I was 12 so my recall may be embellished a little, as well as I had a brother three years older and if it was not nailed down he would eat it, he usually won the game, just sayin'
Back to the name of the game, many years later and many years in between I have thought about that phrase, and have used it to describe the surge of hungry I feel. Usually that hungry is not the growling in my stomach as a reminder that I skipped a meal instead it is the all consuming feeling of I must eat and a lot of food, it is the feeding of my emotions and not my body. Yesterday when I returned home from the Dr's and had taken my medicine I took a nap and struggled to sleep at first, I laid there thinking of how hard I have been working to lose this weight and how derailed being ill was making me feel. I was thinking I still need a Christmas tree and want it now, I wanted to feel healthy enough to wash the floor in the living room for the tree ( why is that when we are sick, we see all the dust bunnies and want them gone now, and the day before when we were well it was the last thing on our mind!) I Was feeling bad about not being able to think about my eating and not caring about it and feeling bad about being behind on the holidays quickly approaching and until I feel better I have no control in any of this. I have no control until I feel better, as when I was a child I had no control in that chaotic home.
I woke up from my nap, like a Hungry Hungry Hippo...the appetite that had been had been squashed the by the illness was here, and again like the other day I wanted junk, Chinese food was swirling through my head ( I have had not had chinese food in months) I talked myself down from that and instead ordered Mozzarella sticks and a pasta carbonara dish from the new Italian pizzeria in town, and when I went to pick them up I was informed by the man at the counter they are called Monsterella sticks!
There is a reason for the name they looked more like corn dogs minus the stick and after eating one, I was so full and sick, yes sick, I may have lost my senses, but my stomach knew better than I . I felt nauseous and I tried one bite of the pasta dish and knew what I was doing. This was not food to fill my stomach, this was food to stuff my emotions. I put the lid on the pasta, I wrapped the Monsterella sticks and I got out a can of progress minestrone soup. My daughter who is a size 4 soaking wet came by and away she went with he food, she would feed her and her boyfriend with it.
Hungry Hungry Hippo is who I was when I was a kid trying to find my way in home of 7 children with parents whom were pushed to the brink of sanity by their addictions and responsibilities that they could not manage, I was hungry for love, I was hungry for acceptance and I was hungry to feel cared for. Yesterday I was hungry for some of those same things and today I would tell and am telling myself, I am sick, and I am capable of taking care of me, the last year I have proven that to myself, I know how to deal with difficult feelings without stuffing them down. I am surrounded by people who care, people who want to help. DBF came by and put up the remaining Christmas decor on the outside that I was unable to finish, he knows what is important to me. My daughters called and came by to check on me, I am not that Hippo anymore.