food stuff & stuff

i've decided to try cutting sweets out of my diet, or at least mostly--i'm not going to get all hard core about it or anything. ;-) in the last 4 days i've had very little sweet stuff. i bought cookies for my students and had one in class on thursday (our last class). today i had an extremely small serving of ice cream from the cold stone creamery--i had the sweet cream flavor, and had them mix in copious amounts of raspberry. i don't drink very much soda at all, but i've decided to cut it out altogether (i think i last had a soda about a week ago). so far it has felt good--i don't miss the sweet at all, and i'm even feeling somewhat sweet averse. friday night i was out with C and L and had a margarita that was WAY too syrupy. i couldn't stand it, and had to stop drinking it.

(wow! i just heard thunder!)

i have also, tentatively, added a small amount of meat back into my diet. i mean meat from land animals--i've been eating fish all along, though not too often. i think i'm missing some essential vitamins that come from meat; i take a multivitamin and supplement with B-complex as well, but it still doesn't seem enough. i've been worried that i'm slightly anemic--i haven't had it checked, and i don't really want to start taking an iron supplement anyway, for lots of reasons. i've had a few small servings of meat over the last week or so, and i think it's helping. i'm being fairly tentative about it. trying this and that. eating it if i really want it, and not if i don't. it's too soon to tell if it's making any real difference; it might be in my head. in any case, i don't want to start eating tons of meat or anything, i just want to try allowing myself to eat meat again, when i really want it. i feel like really wanting it is indicative of bodily need, somehow. there's an instinct in there that i should trust.

(now it's raining...such a beautiful sound...with more thunder rolling around the sky. i love thunderstorms.)

today has been a hard day. i don't know what's going to happen. i feel sad and lonely, and yet i want to be alone.

so be it.

i think it's time i just went with my gut feelings, no matter what they are (speaking of instinct). i thought i had learned to do that a long time ago, but somewhere along the way i lost track. not surprisingly, lately i've also been feeling like i have lost track of my edge. i've grown too cautious. there has been a lot of loss and hurt this year, worry and fear...it's very tempting to retreat to safer ground, a more certain path.

no. that way leads to slow death. not the same thing as long life. certainty is an illusion, safety an empty promise. i know better.