I’d like to write about my relationship with food. I don’t think I’ve done this, ever. I have complained to my old therapist about how I don’t eat enough, have talked about it with my personal trainer - how I must eat more if I want to be able to lift heavier weight. Even with my roommate, we both stand before the open refrigerator or pantry wondering, “What should I eat? Am I even hungry? I should be hungry,” her guzzling a beer and me dipping almonds into chocolate hummus and popping an Eggo waffle in the toaster, calling that dinner. It helps to know that she doesn’t have a great interest in food either. But something about me doesn’t enjoy eating large quantities. Whenever I finish the serving in one sitting at a restaurant or even at a friend’s house, I feel uncomfortably full. I have probably trained my body to subsist on less than what is healthy. I know this. But there is something I enjoy about it. I enjoy the resourcefulness of making every $12 meal I eat out last 2 meals. It makes me feel like I am stretching my dollar. I even enjoy the slight fuzziness that comes when I’ve only eaten a breakfast of yogurt, granola, and waffles and suddenly it is 2pm so I have some spring rolls and suddenly it’s 5pm and woops that fuzziness is starting to turn into dizziness. Then I know it’s time. But for some reason I enjoy it, everything seems more urgent. Every book at the library seems interesting, more interesting than going home and eating. Even when I ate the spring rolls, finishing the book I brought with me was more important. My second cup of tea fueled me until it didn’t. I don’t really know what to make of this. It happens more on the weekends - during the work week I feel I am constantly eating or looking for something to snack on to pass the hours. Maybe that makes it okay. Though ti perturbs me that when I have more time to myself I choose not to spend it on nourishing myself. It is also interesting how angry I would get at my ex boyfriend when he didn’t eat properly. Because it made him irritable and lazy. I don’t think it does that to me, however. Sure I can get grumpy but it takes a long time for that to settle in. And if I’m alone, I almost get more productive. Food becomes something subtle in the background, a fly that buzzes by my ear every now and then, that I shoo away eager to finish the book or keep browsing at the library or keep wandering the streets of downtown Portland, wanting to save my money instead of satiating a need that I don’t even feel that prominently.
On Yom Kippur it is traditional to fast. I’m not saying that it is enjoyable to abstain from food/drink for 25 hours, but the sort of half-version of it I did today almost absentmindedly now reminds me of the holiday. I feel I relate to myself differently if I haven’t eaten for a while. My thoughts become quicker, more muddled, I am hit more intensely by the blue of the sky and the long branches intersecting and the noise of the farmers markets tents being broken down. I see the display of fruits and vegetables more clearly, the red of the bell pepper, enjoying their tumble from the basket. Even now, I have eaten something but I can still feel the remains of the fuzziness that makes me feel freer, somehow. It’s like how people experience insomnia, I think. Is it good for you? No. Can it sometimes produce an interesting state of mind, more interesting than that of a well-rested or well-fed person? Yes. I know I am speaking from a place of great privilege here, that we can choose how much we eat or sleep. Nonetheless, I wanted to write about it. My relationship to food, my sometimes disinterest in it, my avoidance of it, even. My concern of the vicious cycle between “I don’t want to spend money on eating out” and also “I don’t want to go home yet.” I sometimes talk to my body when I know I should have meal and I don’t, because I’d rather go swimming. “It’s ok, you can last another 2 more hours. It isn’t that bad.” The thing I sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between is “is this actually unhealthy or am I just experimenting with a mindset” again, I don’t think I do it often enough for it to be that bad. But that isn’t to say I shouldn’t be more vigilant about it.
I am beginning to enjoy being single. Although we still send texts here and there, I’m beginning to experience that peace of mind of only worrying about myself. I don’t have to think about another person with every decision I make anymore. i can come and go to any event as I please. I can change the course of my day at a moment’s notice without letting anyone know. I can only watch half the movie if I want to. I can spend hours reading and staring off into the distance wondering about what I just read, and then lose my place in the book, and then find it again. Life has such a different rhythm and flow to it when you’re single. Yes, including that loneliness, the worried thoughts of how long will this singleness last, useless thoughts of “Maybe I should’ve stayed”, but these thoughts are abating in their frequency. It is fun to have every day unfurl, especially weekend days, just for me. This sounds selfish but my therapist would probably say that it isn’t, it is really cultivating an independent lifestyle that I construct everyday, tweaking things to my liking, decorating and furnishing the new space I’ve created by breaking up.
There is a lot of change coming up. The change from summer to fall - warmth and sun and shorts and biking and street fairs and glistening Willamette river to clouds and rain and wind and cold and coats and darkness. I know it is more gradual a change than I realize, but its imminence causes me to be apprehensive.
The change of age - from 27 to 28. It is my golden birthday, 28 on the 28th, and yet I feel the same apathy I always feel when thinking of what to do for my birthday. Unsure of who to invite or what to do.
The change of leaving the family I currently nanny and jumping into a brand new career head first. At leas it feels head first. A residential treatment center for children suffering from mental illness/abuse/neglect. I have been reading books about mental illness and addiction for as long as I can remember, mostly in the memoir vein, and I always experienced such empathy and curiosity and wonder at people who suffer from such conditions - and now, in some form, I will get to be around them every day and help in whatever way I can. That is a huge change, on top of all the other time/season changes, I just wonder if it’ll be too much at once. Though I guess, again, my therapist would say, it is really all at once? No. I turn 28, then the new year happens, then Yom Kippur a whole week after that. Then another week - that may sound short but a lot can happen in a week. It’s not like you turn 28 and it’s the high holidays and you start a job all in one day. Chill out. Life can only move at one speed. By the second. There are so many seconds from now until tomorrow, until next week. Relish in that.
LIfe is good. Thus concludes my ramblings for now. Thank you for reading if these words have any readers.
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