The Groceries Came with an Epiphany

It’s not writing for you that’s the problem – it’s that I keep saying “I’ll edit and post this later,” after I’ve written, then “later” never comes. So, I’m giving this a quick once-over and posting. If you find typos or errands? Don’t tell me. We can both live with a tiny oversight that affects neither of our lives. Namaste.

The grocery delivery came, and I am weirdly excited about it.

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Spoiler alert – there’s nothing exciting in it. Got three bags of beans, people! WAHOO. YEAH. BRACE YOURSELF FOR THE WOW. But no, not really.

Instead, it feels to me like a momentum shift. Some tiny-big-change that foreshadows excellence to come. And that’s siss-boom-bah kinda exciting.

Why?

Well, I have a plan for a healthy meal tonight, packed with veggies and a little meat, but going long on flavour with everything from Thai red curry paste, tamarind, peanut, lime leaves, lime, fish sauce, and whatever else I can wham-bang my sauce up with. And I am stoked. STOKED! I can’t wait to bring it together, because I’ve wanted to explore Asian cookery for a while, but I’ve had this weird “Oh, I don’t know how to riff with those flavours, man…” kinda vibe, but I also always feel hemmed in by recipes.

But tonight we riff, people. We RIFF!

There’s something about wanting to cook that meal that’s different for me, because I’m seeking a new direction with food. I want to embrace that Asian ethic of meat being part of a meal, rather than building the meal around meat. Part of it’s about the budget, part of it’s about the health aspect, but it’s also about the planet.

I love meat and don’t want to give it up, but can I reduce it daily in the volume I consume, while still enjoying the texture and experience only it can deliver? I think I can.

The great thing is that I really, really want to do this now. I’m tired of being a carnivore in a meat-forward way, and I think my body is tired of it too. But, God, I love the experience of consuming meat, so finding the balance is key.

That’s new – and it’s exciting, because it’s so hard to genuinely get to that place where you WANT to change and you’re WILLING to change. Even harder is to get where the actual CHANGING starts making sense and feels almost natural. Oftentimes the latter never becomes true.

When you can’t vibe with changing, the changing ain’t gonna stick. Been there, done that.

Forcing myself to be something I wasn’t, was one of the most empowering experiences I’ve had… until it became the most destructive.

When I lost weight back in 2007-2008, I did so by pushing myself to eat in ways that were “healthy” but didn’t make me excited. It was an exercise of discipline. I was so proud of myself for having the discipline, but living a disciplined life isn’t joyful.

So, eventually I gained all my weight back — by double. That’s about 140 pounds, for those counting at home.

I swore I’d never do that to myself again.

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These days, I’m back on a healthier path by prioritizing things that are important to me, like making my home livable, eating a bit better, and getting back into stuff like walking and Qi Gong.

I’ve lost 65% of that weight I regained, yet I don’t feel like I have dieted for even a day. I don’t.

What actually began this whole period of change was the pandemic.

I lived in a shady part of Ottawa when the pandemic started, and my anxiety made me terrified of going in the nearby government liquor store to shop, because it was so crowded. We had some alcohol-delivery services, but they couldn’t keep staff and they all shuttered overnight.

Suddenly I was out of booze, and my fear of getting this terrifying illness overrode my desire to be drunk. Convenient!

Until about February of 2020, I’d drank at least 300 bottles of wine in the year prior… and the year prior to that, and the one prior to that, and...

I was on a path to an early death, and I knew it, but I didn’t have it in me to change, because I didn’t realize how fucked up I’d become while travelling.

*

I never realized how traumatic it was to have my dad die, then be alone 10,000 kilometres away from home for major surgery 6 months later with the surgery that meant I’d never have kids and had suddenly transitioned from one kind of woman to the kind of woman that can’t breed anymore.

No one can prepare you for that. I was even less prepared for it because I’ve never wanted kids, and I didn’t expect there to be any kind of mourning with my hysterectomy. SURPRISE. But did I get time to heal from that trauma? No, I had to go straight back into travelling and trying to stay afloat financially, because I had no sick time or government assistance as a traveller alone in the world.

I also wasn’t prepared to blow out my back and cripple myself in Bucharest in the summer of 2018. Being a nomad with a blown back was a whole world of hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It was one stupid mental/physical trauma on top of another, and I went into survival mode for literally three years straight, non-stop — right into the pandemic.

And, honestly, I never knew how much any of this bothered me until the last year or so, when I finally admitted to myself that I came home really damaged, and my drinking was symptomatic of that.

It’s been life-changing to finally admit I didn’t just come back to Canada because I had a bad back, but because I’d become traumatized by isolation in all that adversity. I only reached that place in the last six months, too.

When life is hard, you need your people. You just do. I think we’ve all learned that in the last three years.

*

Anyhow. I still drink, but I cherish the experience and it’s, oh, 15 bottles or less a year of wine now. Losing weight’s kinda easy when you cut out about 290 bottles of wine a year, it turns out. Who knew?

But all that destructive living came with a toll and my health’s been off for years, and that’s why I’ve been constantly improving my choices and making little, necessary tweaks.

Like, last night, I realized the reason I’ve had insomnia for a third time in two weeks is because hot cocoa is keeping me up – I am now of the age where cocoa prohibits sleep. (Fuck you, Age 49.) And I’d already made changes so it was less sweet, more grown-up, but if the cocoa itself is keeping me up at night, then cutting it out entirely at night-time is easy. (Sigh.)

And that’s what’s been the case with most of my changes. I’ve needed to do them, I’ve found tasty ways to adapt to them, and now they stick. Feeling the way I once did is deterrent enough when the life I lead now feels so much better — and I still get to eat bread and cheese in moderation.

Know what hasn’t stuck, though? Vegetables.

But you know who makes some pretty tasty veggies? Pretty much every country in Asia, from the Middle East to Indonesia and Japan.

So, tonight, we chicken-curry it up ‘round here.

Groceries, man. Exciting!

Also exciting is when you finally accept your pain and where it comes from, and you stop judging yourself for it, and you’re kind to yourself. That’s some pretty great stuff, too.

Well, hey, those groceries aren’t gonna put themselves away, kids. Have a great weekend!

Nomad No More is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.