It has been a nightmare. It is sapping my energy and depressing me into states of melancholy and self-loathing. I can’t stop thinking about the pure misery of it.
It is a diet. A terrible, spawned-from-the-devil, diet.
I’m on day three.
Yes, I just said three. That is “all” you say? Oh, don’t you
dare! I will punch something angrily! I
will cry despairingly. ...For the love of God (who I do love), let me have a cup of coffee. With
lots of cream. Or a hunk of bread. With lots of butter.
Alright look, I might be getting a little dramatic. And perhaps ever so slightly
delusional. But I’m really hungry.
Did I mention I'm on a diet? Yes, so it’s day three of no:
wheat/gluten/yeast, dairy products, eggs, almonds, oats, corn, beans, bananas,
pineapple, coffee, chocolate… or, roughly classified as: food.
My blood recently tested as having a reaction to all of those foods and so this is a couple month to perhaps a lifetime, cold-turkey... bah, turkey: one of the few foods I can eat... elimination to help with some residual arthritis/post-cancer problems.
On day one of said diet I was very late for work because, instead
of getting up to face the day – mainly the task of trying to find something to
eat, I laid in bed hungrily instead. You don’t have to eat if you’re (pretending
to be) asleep, right? Later in the morning I indulgently went to Whole Foods to
console myself with a $7 (gross) hemp smoothie to go with my frighteningly expensive
one bag of groceries – only to realize the smoothie had banana in it and so was
off my list. I almost slumped down onto the eco-friendly floors and cried out
from my knees, “whhhhhhy?”
I have slogged through some pretty horrendous things in life,
(like many people.) If I wasn't so hungry right now, it might be amusing that a
very restrictive diet is undoing me. Plus, I have been dragging an aching body
around for five years now; the immobility and painful hobbles this diet is
meant to help should be bolstering my resolve. I should be standing on my
mountain of earned badges of fortitude, pumping my fist into the air while
chanting, "I got this too. Yeah Baby!"
But really, I’m just hungry. (Sorry, did I already mention
that?) And I’m tired of a body that I don’t understand and can’t keep up with
me.
It used to bother me that I had become an emblem to incite
gratitude in others – as in, “At least I’m not her.” I don’t mind that so much
anymore. (But, Dear Husband, please drink your coffee somewhere else before I
strangle you to merely get a good whiff of that deliciousness.) Right, so to the contrary, I’m glad I can
help. Because, all jokes aside, I can help you. And so, not for
the sake of garnering your sympathy but for brightening your perspective, I tell you this story. (And all the others.) I
can help you realize your day is not so bad, your problems not so big. Your pain is not so deep.
And when it is or when they are, you too will survive.
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