Cooking reminds me that I am capable of taking care of myself and worthy of taking of and nourishing myself. - Roxane Gay Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
I love walking into my tiny apartment and being greeted with the smell of chopped red onions. I don't know why it is red onions over other onions but I love the smell of red onions.
This evening as I was preparing a meal to go into my Crock Pot I discovered I did not have one critical liquid ingredient. This discovery forced me into the unseasonably warm evening to the nearest hippie-dippie-whole-food-patchouli-slinging-store to get what I needed (the ingredient was gluten-free soy sauce; judge away). It worked out because I also needed some ginger powder and I was craving some sorbet.
I walked to the store, wearing a too heavy a coat for the evening, because silly me thought that with it being February in San Francisco and less than ten blocks from the ocean it might be cold out and I was uncomfortably mistaken.
Items acquired-I as able to hop on MUNI and get back to my lovely smelling apartment. Walking into olfactory joy, I thought of Ms. Gay's quote about cooking. I recognize, for the multineenth time in my adult life that I don't cook for myself. Proof of this lies not only in the fact that I do not have a "proper kitchen" but in the fact that I had to wash off the dust from my Crock Pot and wash out dead bugs from the bowl. Yes, you read that correctly, dead bugs from the bowl. I hadn't used it in definitely over a year.
For the better part of a year I have been using a meal delivery service and going out to eat a lot. I say part of this is that I don't have a stove or oven in my kitchen (simply a sink and a small counter), but the truth is I have a certain degree of disordered eating. I do not mean to take away from the suffering that people experience from clinically diagnosed disordered eating. I'm only talking of my experience of eating.
I do not have a clinical sense of disordered eating. I just don't eat regularly scheduled meals, and I have no sense of appropriate meal sized portions. I don't know how to take care of myself in this sense. I LOVE to snack or eat sides. I am addicted to snack foods and will easily use snack foods or side dishes as meal replacements. And even since becoming a vegan I still do this- and it is almost easier to do this because the excuse of "oh they don't have anything I can eat so I'll just eat these seven different sides instead." I only say it is disordered because I see how folks around me eat, and I definitely don't eat like them. More often than not I eat to assuage the anxiety of the moment.
In addition to not having a "proper kitchen" I do have some strange diet restrictions. I am a Gluten Free-Vegan. This isn't for ethical reasons. It's for allergen reasons. It makes my body happy. And actually I don't have to justify why I eat the way I eat. Given this dietary complicated (and often times expensive) intersection my lovely friends will send me recipes of things to cook. Super plus bonus when it involves one of the appliances that I own, such as a CrockPot. A few days ago one of my beloveds sent me a Vegan/Gluten Free recipe for Kung Pao Chickpeas and that is what is making my studio smell delicious as I write this.
The past few days have been really difficult. I woke up at 2 a.m. on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and I felt..heavy. The kind of heavy one feels when they're grieving. I know this feeling. My mind raced with thoughts I could see but couldn't catch. I was overwhelmingly sad and terrified that I might have to miss work the next day.
"Fuuuuucccccck." I thought. I knew this was coming. I could feel it following me. And then I was sick. For hours- I was sick.
Eventually I was able to get back to sleep.
For two days I did not go to work. I could not. Anything more than riding the train to get coffee was exhausting. I struggled to remain focused long enough to read, and some books were easier than others. My couch provided incredible full body hugs, because the idea of lying in bed shamed me immensely. But I slept....a lot. Or I just laid there with my eyes closed- avoiding most people.
Last night, a friend came over.
"You know what would be good right now?"
"What?"
"Your TV with some DVDs"
"I'm not watching TV." (silence) "But there is YouTube and there is my phone. And I feel like this could be and addendum to the original contract."
He showed me comedy from El Salvador. We laughed.
I showed him Bad Lip Reading Videos. We laughed.
I was smiling enough that we took some Snapchat pictures together with silly filters. I don't think in all the time we have been friends we had ever done that. I was grateful.
I feel very good today and I know well enough to capitalize on the momentum of good feels but to still be gentle with myself. I felt good enough to attend a volunteer info session, go grocery shopping (twice) and throw chopped ingredients into a Crock Pot and call it cooking. This front-loading of self care will pay off when I have frozen food and can't fathom knowing what to eat or cooking. I hope to have a good day tomorrow for another dish (Coconut Curry) and laundry.
Historically, February to the beginning of April I suffer a depressive episode. I have good days and bad weeks.
I have a fairly good medication regiment. And this is the first Feb-April stretch that I've been vegan, which (not to get preachy) for me--And I speak ONLY for me-- I have noticed makes a difference in making episodes less intense. So...let's see how the ride this time around goes.
Thanks for reading.
