It's ok not to be ok

 Running out of time 

It's funny, funny how you think that you will have time for things. That you'll just do it another time. And that even through difficult things, you can just... predict the problems and keep carrying on. Believing that there will come an opportunity to do them.

But then you can't do that thing anymore. Along the way, something changed and now there's no way to go after that thing anymore. - I won't end this story saying seize the day. Enjoy while it lasts or do it or otherwise you never will. That's just not how life works. Life, it's busy and you always, always think you'll have another opportunity.

For me, this is about food. But for you, it can be about anything. Anything you have a strong attachment to. Even if you don't realize it. That thing that is always there, always present. That habit or that person that keeps you afloat. I now have a condition that keeps me a prisoner. And I am my own jailer. Once again, I feel like I have fallen into the trappings of my own body and I, willingly put myself there.

I cannot eat anymore.

Not the things that I like.

I cannot eat freely anymore, not the things that I want. All those tasty things that used to bring me pleasure. I cannot eat them without consequences. I know, they always had consequences attached to them, but before they weren't on my mind. Or I ignored them. Or they seemed inconsequential. But right now, I have to think about everything. And eating, for now, it's not about pleasure anymore. It's about nutrition.

I mourn the loss of it. The loss of things that I was saving for later - and now there's no later. There's only today. What am I going to eat today, and later tonight? I have to plan and prep meals, I have to organize all of it because I cannot eat out anymore. Only a few things, and I'm always thinking I'm going to start to feel ill again; this is gonna make me have a crisis. And all of this makes that much more stressful. - As if it already wasn't.

I'm always waiting for that gnarling pain. I'm always mourning the pleasure, as the displeasure washes over my taste buds.

It's ironic how after the longest time, I am now, - because of health reasons and because I choose to actively not ignore it - more present. I'm here. I have to be. I have to be more aware of what I eat, my time management, where I eat, how slowly I eat, and how much to eat. This idea has always felt very disconcerting and traumatizing to me. Being here. It always put me in a fugue state.

I would avoid it and save it for later.

Coming full circle. I guess that somethings that you save for later do come to you. Just not the way you expected. Not how you wanted it. It's ugly, it's sad, it's terrifying.

I feel like it's three parts blame, one part negligence, and the rest out of the whole... it's just falling down a bottomless pit as images of food I can no longer eat are displayed across screens on the walls of said bottomless pit.

I fall and fall and fall and never wonder, not once, if I'm ever gonna land somewhere. I can just stare at the foods and think: I no longer have you. You are no longer mine. Who am I without tasting you? Who am I without that joy that you've always brought me for so many years? That I have treasured so dearly. There are no tears.

I think, just a quiet resignation.

It feels a lot like accepting a fate you knew you were always heading towards.

In parts... I also feel relieved. That now I am forced to change things, for the better of course. That these changes are gonna bring me health, that I might be able to organize myself better. That I can invest all of this energy I invest in food and invest in something that actually does me good. Not just some fleeting pleasure, to be drank, and spilled, and eaten, and spoiled.

Something nurturing, something that I can grow into. And it's okay to fall into a bottomless pit, as long as I believe it's gonna lead me to something better. It just means it's not gonna be easy.