.SOMETIMES RAW.

At some point in my life, I thought, the Paleo Diet is the thing but I did not last longer than one week. The initial concept is okay; to detox from sugar but I just cannot eat meat in some form every single day or every other day. My son and I eat meat maybe once a week in form of chicken or chicken stock in a soup. I had a crazy amount of energy which was awesome; I blame the tons of veggies for that rather than the meat. The diet is also pretty expensive. All the meat…and I like pasta, so I quit. 

The diet that stuck with me for the longest is probably veganism, yet I do not practice it 100% either. I don’t eat soy products simply because I don’t like the taste of it. Soy products made me feel the worst physically. I tried all types of tofu in all sort of variations but c’mon: SOY CHICKEN or Cashew Cheese? How can I use this in a French Onion Soup? Right! Not at all. Vegan Chicken Wings? Buffalo Cauliflower? Zucchini pasta is okay but not always. On the socially fancy side, this diet is great. I went out, flipped my hair and asked for a “soy latte” or if they have “alternatives and vegan options”. [So annoying, I know.] This diet is not cheap either. 

I tried Gluten-free. Fuck it. Nothing needs to be added here. 

So this is what I am sticking with: Intermittent Fasting. How I apply it to myself is that I just don’t eat for about 16 hours straight three times a week. The awesome thing is, that I can enjoy my French Onion Soup or the occasional muffin and chocolate. I just give my organs rest and this feels so good. I usually eat supper at around 6 pm and then nothing anymore for 16 hours. Breakfast at around 10 am doesn’t sound so too bad, does it? And be aware, I don’t do this every single day. By practicing this diet overnight, I don’t run around like a sad, weak, hungry version of myself and I can still enjoy all this good food that is out there. We only live once, right? And, honestly, whenever I have two or three slices of pizza for supper, I am not hungry at all the next morning so I skip breakfast and have something later. 

Food for thought: Overall, I learned that no diet changed my life so far and I love to eat and enjoy trying new things. I realized that a good night’s sleep combined with the intermitted fasting makes me feel good on a daily basis.  I also love and want wine and Camembert. And dark chocolate. 

I have had a bunch of relationships in my life and what I have learned is that truth and honesty are the only rules I want from my partner. But, whatever the relationship looked like: platonic, work-related, romantic, sexual, they all made me reconsider and think about my rules however. For me it is so much easier to tell my partner exactly what I want, require, need or expect and be straightforward about it than talking around the subject or lie. Especially, whenever the relationship is complicated in the first place for example when it is a long-distance relationship, certain lies can make everything even messier. It is such a great feeling when partners can talk about anything freely without having tangled up stuff in the back of their mind. Thinking about how to tell my partner the truth without making him angry is not always possible but I aim for it at least. Life happens, love happens, situations and feelings change. We either adapt or we split up and everyone goes their separate ways discovering new things. There is nothing awkward about it. Again, this is life. 

One question that popped up several times in the last couple of days for me was how to be honest after having my feelings hurt. How does someone do it? Let’s say, you have a long-distance relationship (with someone who is in the military for example) which is very, very difficult in the first place and almost never works. Someone feels lonely, in addition they have trouble at home and useless fights and arguments and they meet someone else who they can talk to for hours while discovering each other, realizing after sharing wine, cheese, sausages and making secret plans for the future that this person might be the one. Better than the person waiting at home. They talk more. They become close friends and need to spend more time with each other to cope with certain horrible situations that they have to deal with on a daily basis. Here, I reckon, it is difficult to be honest to your significant other who is waiting at home. Telling the truth could mean that you might lose this partner. I don’t remember where I read it but it went something like this: honesty is an art, you first have to know yourself. 

“But my heart has awakened, trembles, calls. It does not ask for the future ahead; it asks only to be here with you now, in the shortened days, when green leaves turn red” 

Overall, honesty makes life simpler. If I don’t tell person A that X, Y and Z is okay but say that X, Y and Z sucks it might be hurtful in the beginning but it is at least honest. I am not dreading myself through an event with a fake smile looking at my watch waiting for it to end. I want to be honest when I endeavour to understand and listen to my own feelings. My problem sometimes is that I can feel hate and love at the same time. Same goes for anger or gratitude. Life is not simple. We are not simple but I can try to understand and learn the root for my weird emotions and outbursts sometimes. This leads to -> communicating these issues in a normal tone and voice with my partner. Telling the truth means risk, it means being scared, I already mentioned that, which makes me vulnerable but then again, it feels better later on and to be open for the person’s response that might even hurt. Just don’t be an asshole. This is a start. I think. 

The last two weeks were very difficult for me and I asked myself the question, “When does it all stop being so complicated”? Most of the day I felt like curling up somewhere to sleep. I was mentally and physically exhausted. It all started with one email about a big decision in life I will have to make pretty soon. This is on my mind constantly but life goes on with a fast pace. Work for school needs to be done and assignments are piling up. It never stops just there. More phone calls and emails came in and every time I heard that annoying ping-noise of incoming bad news on my computer, I cringed inside. I changed the sound but the emails kept coming. 

When I was about to figure things out, another email arrived to tell me that I have to pay a large amount of money soon (deadline highlighted in bold that seemed to yell at me “pay NOW”). I closed the computer and looked out the window. The river next to my house is so calm. The water just keeps running down the stream. It just goes and goes. I stared at the water for a while since this seems to calm me down when it started to rain; just about when it was time to pick up my son from school. “Of course it has to start raining now”, I reckoned while I searched for my umbrella. By this time, it did not rain, it poured like the world is coming to an end. (Insert annoying face emoji here) 

I dragged my tired body to the car and drove to school. No parking. The children waited patiently to be picked up when I spotted my son covered in mud and tears holding his teacher’s hand. I illegally parked at the bus stop to rush out quickly to get him. By this time, more rain. His teacher told me that my son had a very bad day, cried a lot, had a fight with a six year-old girl and hit her. I nodded my head blankly while I thought about my illegal parking spot. We ran through the rain and back to the car when an officer gave me a ticket and screamed at me that there is “no way you can ever EVER park here again”! Did I scream at my son for misbehaving at school? Nope. 

These days I am worrying a lot more than actually to live and enjoy myself. This grey cloud keeps floating above my head though. The quicker I try to run away, the faster it follows me. There is no escape it seems. 

Then I stopped to hustle, slowed down and gave my current situation some serious thought. What good does it do me to be stressed out like this? The only thing I will suffer from is a major headache, burnout and this feeling that I cannot function properly. What really matters to me is myself and my son at this point. What is best for me and what is best for him. First, tackle one issue at the time. What has the most priority and then take it from there. Sleep and rest!  Also, I started to put my energy into things that really matters which is to find solutions for certain things instead of whining about them and being stressed out and depressed. 

I also spent time outlining all my projects I want to complete with realistic expectations in mind. I tend to do a lot more than I can possibly accomplish in a short time and I end up frustrated, unhappy and disappointed in myself. By now, my anxiety is under control and I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am less stressed about the work and major decisions that are ahead of me. By saying no to one thing I am saying yes to something else. By saying no to this one path in my life I am saying yes to myself and a new path that is very exciting indeed. Me, myself and I will create something pretty amazing. When one door closes, another one opens. 

And I am back to what I love the most: writing and maintaining this blog.