Moving On?

I need to remember for future reference just how bad bad was. I don't want to forget because I don't want to let denial or carelessness or frustration take hold in my life. I can see that happening. But this cannot be a short fling of passion. This has to be a lifetime commitment. I have to let go of the past and move into this life finally and permanently.

Uh, well, okay, commitment has never been a favorite word in my vocabulary. And no, that's not the reason I'm still and always have been single. Shut up. Anyway, I never cared for the concept of commitment; not to anyone or anything. Hell, even the animals, if you think about it, are a short term thing. The dog at the outside will live to be 16 if she's lucky. The cats, may the Gods help me, could live to be 20. I have no clue how long house finches live, but I'd say since Fidget has already survived what should have killed her that she's been on borrowed time since I met her. The point is, I've never said "Forever" to anyone or anything in my life before now, most particularly to myself. I can't even imagine how extraordinary a man would have to be for me to agree to that whole "Till death do us part" thing. Me and forever do not have a stellar track history.

But we're talking about my physical life on this earth in this incarnation. I'm here for a reason and I know I haven't finished up here yet, not even close. I'm also positive that this whole experience is part of that grand sick twisted plan the Gods have for me. I've grown to hate their sense of humor - truly. At any rate, I would prefer to die quietly in my sleep at 98 than in pain from some horrible malady at 50. So in many ways I'm up against a do it right or die enemy. I've never contemplated that before. And in truth I always figured cancer or diabetes would be the bugaboos that would eventually come along to frighten the crap out of me. I was so not prepared to face an enemy masquerading as soft chewy golden brown and warm out of the oven. The enemy is supposed to be dark and menacing. It is not supposed to arrive in the person of a loaf of crusty french bread. How do you take an enemy like that seriously?

But the lifetime complications of gluten intolerance read like a who's who of chronic disease and disorder. The complications I've already experienced are chronic diarrhea, indigestion and acid reflux, severe anemia and vitamin deficiencies, brain fog, depression, extreme exhaustion, nausea, horrible joint pain, kidney disease, chronic bronchitis and various and assorted minor auto immune issues. I'm lucky. No - really. The real nasty complications can kill you.

The depression was probably the worse side effect. I suspect that it's colored my entire life, how I've lived, the choices I've made, all of it. It leaves me to wonder when people throw around the phrase "chemical imbalance" if they even get the implications. Do they get how profound a link there is between what you put in your body and how you feel? Body and mind are not separate entities. Vitamins and minerals play a big part in how well the brain functions. Gluten intolerance destroys the small intestines ability to absorb many crucial vitamins and minerals which in turn effects the thyroid and hormone output which throws everything out of whack. It's a cascade effect. The perfect balancing of the body's mechanisms is so fragile in some ways. I wonder if some day we won't come to understand that we create the chemical imbalances, all of them by not understanding our physical bodies, our very genes?

I came across a diet concept the other day called the Paleolithic diet. It's the idea that man evolved as a hunter gathering, and his genes are programmed to a hunter gatherer's diet. Then there are my genes which specifically do not allow my body to process gluten. Genetically speaking I was never meant to eat grains. So what else is there we don't yet understand about the human body? We know it needs sunlight, some people need it more than others. What else are we as individuals genetically programmed to need that we're not giving out bodies, or what is it we're giving our bodies that they can't handle? Western medicine wants to hand us a pill, all of us, the same pill and be done with it. I don't think it's that simple.

I'm not knocking the pill. I took an anti-depressant for about a year. I remember the profound sense of relief when it kicked in. The lows were gone, there was just this calming steady plateau suddenly in my life. I began to understand for the first time what life without depression is like. It saw everything with new eyes. It was a tremendous lesson. But it came to the point where I couldn't afford it. With no insurance to pick up the cost I couldn't manage the $120 dollars a month. But just knowing that life can be like that was a revelation and later, there were many days when that knowing sustained me.

As the effects of Celiac Disease got worse and worse over the last year the depressions came one on top of the other, just piling up, incredibly dark. I could feel it coming most days, and it had started to scare me. It was all I could do to breath, to sneak a breath in between crashing blows. It was no longer just a vague grayness that colored my life, but sudden, devastating descents into pitch black holes, over and over, like riding a roller coaster that periodically got close to the light, but never really saw it. I was scared and puzzled and devastated by it, and that was on top of all the other bodily effects going on. Once I began to understand what was happening to my body I began to see the patterns in the roller coaster ride. Hell, I can now see the pattern running throughout most of the last ten years of my life.

Yeah, then a new kind of depression took hold. Once I went gluten free the sudden descents into the deep dark holes stopped, but it was replaced by a persistent anger fueled depression. I'm still trying to find my way out of that. But that's okay. It's not the bleak insane darkness, and I prefer it. I don't know exactly how to explain it. Behind the anger fueled depression is a calm backdrop. The insanity is gone. I'm not on the roller coaster anymore. Now I just have to come to terms with the anger.

And that's where letting go and moving on comes in. I've got to find a way to do it. I haven't watched cooking shows for awhile. I tried watching one last night. Bridget goes to Belgium or something like that. Well, in Belgium they eat a lot of gluten. Turns out waffles, well duh, are the national food. Fortunately I've never really much wanted to visit Belgium. Cross number 94 on the list of places to someday go off the list. I suppose someone not understanding reading this would think I was just a big baby. So you can't eat everything Paula makes, you can eat some of it so shut up. What's your problem? The problem is every single time I see something I can't eat, I can't cook, I can't bake I'm angry and I'm hurt. And boy, let me tell you, I'm freaking surrounded by anger and hurt. It's everywhere, on TV, on the radio, in the paper, on the Internet, on billboards, in stores, everywhere. Here it is, and you can't ever have it again, nahhhh nah na nah nahhhhhh. Yeah, there damn well better be some big meaningful all encompassing outstandingly significant cosmic lesson in this. If this is just a joke guys, I'm not amused.

So I'm still casting around, trying to find a way to be happy with what my life is. I need some way to make it all right that doesn't involve me sneering at everyone who deigns to eat a croissant with their morning coffee, or breaking down in tears during a Burger Bust commercial. I have to find a way or I'm doomed to fail.