So hard to write, even harder to read

I found this while cleaning out some files, and it just seemed like something that shouldn’t be  deleted or forgotten.

Sunday, 8^th July, 2012

I’ve spent the entire day in a drowsy state, moving slowly and deliberately through the motions of domestic necessity. I’ve tried to clear my mind and focus on anything and everything besides the thought that beats behind all others – the thought that has been scraping against the back of my brain for the past four days: My mother is dying. My mother. Is dying. Mymotherisdyingmymotherisdyingmymother is dying.

I want to fall apart completely – cry for days, curl up in my bed and shut out the world and scream I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS I WAS NOT READY FOR THIS. I want strong arms around me, a soothing touch, a calming voice whispering out you’llbeokayyou’llbeokay to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I want to relinquish control and I want to abandon all rational thought and just ride along the deep rivers of feelings which are churning just beneath the surface. I want to not worry and not care and not feel the weight of everything on my shoulders.

I know that I can’t allow myself to be that weak. I already know that I’ll bite the pain into small, bitter pieces, chew them slowly and deliberately, force them down to live in the hollow place where I put all my hurt feelings. Deep in my heart, I know this isn’t a sustainable solution and that one day – and probably one day soon – everything I’ve shoved down below is going to come pouring out of me in a volcanic eruption. But I can’t think about that now. I won’t think about it, because that’s just one more problem that wants solving and I don’t have the energy for anything else right now.

Death is inevitable. It’s the one absolute in this world, and so I suppose it is unfair to say that I didn’t expect this. I spent years expecting to get a phone call to tell me that my mother was dead from some sort of alcohol-related incident – alcohol poisoning, liver failure, attacked in an alley wandering home from a bar somewhere, and so on. I thought I had steeled myself to the idea of her death. I realise now that I was only kidding myself.

I had become accustomed to the idea in its abstract format, but I see now that a part – a large part – of myself never truly believed it would happen.  I know that now, because I don’t think I had ever faced the larger idea – the idea that when she dies, she’s gone. Not just distanced from me, or not talking to me, but gone for good. Even typing this now, I’m filled with a horrible pain that burns deep inside me just at the finality of this concept. No more emails. No more random reconciliations. No more chances. No more time.

This is so hard to write.

Mya Sistra

Last night my little sister and I stayed up talking into the wee hours of the morning. Our conversation began, predictably, with a disagreement and then pinball bounced through the weighty subjects of love, life, loss and forgiveness. It was one of the most honest discussions we’ve ever had, and I find myself still working to process some of of the revalations.

She and I have always had a complicated relationship. When she was born, I was an only child who wanted very much to stay an only child. She was the chosen favourite of both parents, which didn’t make things any easier, and add to that the fact that our financial circumstances put me early into the role of defacto parent. I don’t think I ever really learned how to interact with her person-to-person, sister-to-sister.

That was one of the more startling part of our discussion last night. She had expected me to “just know” something about her behaviour. I had to admit that I didn’t really know her that well at all - and vice versa, she didn’t know me. I left home at 17, and with the six-year age difference, that meant our time together was limited to me serving as babysitter, gatekeeper, arbitrater and judgemental sibling. We didn’t have the experience of bonding over her adolescence. She didn’t have the experience of watching me move into adulthood. When we finally reconnected, the imbalance still existed, as I was in my mid-20s, working on a second degree and building my career and she was in her late teens, bouncing from one misadventure to the other. There was no common ground upon which we could meet and relate.

I never knew how to interact with her without judging, telling, criticising, guiding. She didn’t know how to relate to me without shutting down, aiming for perfection, deliberately rebelling. It made for a complex series of interactions, further exacerbated by our uncanny abilities to know exactly what to say and do to achieve maximum hurt for the other.

Over the past year, something has shifted. I think that I have finally started to see her as a unique person and not just “my little sister”, and I think some perspective and maturity have allowed her to see me as more three dimensional as well. She is married, has a great career, is finishing two degrees and is about to move into her first home. I am living overseas, making a name for myself in my chosen field, and traveling the world. The ground between is not common, but it is finally balanced.

I feel like rather than looking down upon her, I am able to look across and see her as an equal. It feels good.

The Song Remains the Same

People keep asking me how I’m doing, and my reply is always the same. “I’m fine, thanks for asking”. Only a select few people know me well enough NOT to ask me that, and for them my thanks burns bright.

I had to deal with the unexpected death of a loved one, which resulted in a complete recalibration of much of my own perspectives and thoughts on things. Death is such a dirty ninja, sneaking in where least expected. I expected it to be hard - what I didn’t expect was coming to the understand that you’re never really “over” the loss of the person you cared about. The pain exists like a constant refrain bouncing through the walls of an old empty house - sometimes it’s so faint as to be not heard or felt, other times it crashes into you with an almost physical intensity; a sudden gut-punch that leaves you breathless and shocked and shaking.

I think because of what happened, and also because of the general sense of self-awakening that I’ve had over the past several months, I have found myself irrevocably changed as a person. God, it sounds so cliche to write things like that - let alone think or believe them. So I’m not going to wax poetic about my great metamorphosis and all that. I just sit here knowing that I’m filled with a deeper sense of self and internal peace than I’ve ever felt before, and some of that is due to that chorus of hurt that is now part of my own personal soundtrack.

I don’t like dwelling on unpleasant things, and I usually feel that sadness is a weakness - but I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this loss, and this sadness, and what it means for my life. I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t mean anything. People live, people die, the world spins onward. My takeaway was that I have spent so many years being so damn scared - of life, myself, other people, rejection, failure, hurt, anger - and that it is time for me to stop.

The thing is, we all have our shit to carry, and we all have our scars. Some of us have hollow places inside that can consume us with their emptiness if we let them. I’ve decided to use that melody of loss and wrap it around me and let it fill my own empty caverns, to let the heat of unshed tears be a salve for my own wounded heart.

We acquire the strength we have overcome. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Santorini Musings

To my many fans: I know, I know. It’s been a long time, and I should not have left you (at least without a dope beat to step to). So I’m going to make it up to you by sharing my latest adventure in Santorini. (That’s in Greece, and yes I do feel that I have to point this out because I recently spent 45 minutes trying to explain to a living example of the need for social Darwinism that no, Syria is not in Greece. It is a separate country, and yes, I’m really, really sure.)

Reflections from 30,000 ft

I was discussing my blog with a friend the other day and I realised I hadn’t updated it in what must be months. I always intend to, and then life gets the better of me. However, last night over a wonderful dinner in the heart of Rome, I learned that a business partner kept his blog up to date even during his honeymoon and so I felt a bit challenged to get back to cyberspace. As it’s been a while, I have a few themes to tackle before I try (and I really will try) to get back to cataloguing my travel experiences.

Veggie Tales

It is a reasonably beautiful day today here in the jolly old, and as I was walking to the grocery store this morning I realised that I’m fast approaching my 2 month anniversary of going vegan. Before I continue, I want to apologise to my readers - I know I said I wasn’t going to make an issue of this lifestyle change.

And I’m trying really hard not to - I just am flummoxed by how much people care about what I eat. Why on earth does it matter?! I could see people caring/being concerned if had decided to adopt a diet of, say, Old English and Pop Rocks. But I’m eating healthy! I’m taking vitamins! I’m exercising! I’m just not eating animal products! *this is me pulling out my hair*

Cool Books I Think You Should Read

I’m going to channel my inner librarian and preach on the subject of good books for a minute.

There aren’t that many out there right now. It’s rather depressing. The advent of the e-book means that it is easier than ever to get published. It also means that it is easier than ever to saturate the world with poorly written crap.

I’m also pretty much over teen wizards, witches, vampires, werewolves or any combination thereof. Unfortunately, the publishing world seems to just be getting started.

The following books are all unusual and interesting. If you’re a fan of Danielle Steel or James Patterson + Friends, they probably aren’t for you. Just fair warning! :)

Happy MMXII: Year of Big Change (and Alan Turing)

20th January 2012
Listening to: “Blue Jeans” by Lana Del Rey

It might be because the world is going to end (according to the Mayans, and I would like to thank them for planning it for after my birthday because everyone knows how much I love getting my birthday on), but 2012 is already shaping up to be a very introspective year for me.

Anyone who knows me well understands that I’m not really a planner when it comes to changing things. When I decided to get my MBA, I pretty much woke up one day and thought “I’ll go to business school”. The same was true for moving to England and has been the case for any major lifestyle change I’ve undertaken. So I guess it comes as no surprise that one day in late December, I decided to give veganism a go.

Yeah, I’m going to pause a moment for you to digest that. Yes, me - who has previously composed entire odes to pieces of food (namely Iberican jamon from Spain…). Yes, me - who never met a steak I didn’t like. Yes, me - who used to rank macaroni and cheese, prime rib and Southern fried chicken as some of my favourite foods.

So how did it happen? Well, I think it was a convergence of about four things:

1) I have known for awhile that I’m either lactose-intolerant (or maybe just lactose-unliking) but have basically done nothing about it other than occasionally buying lactose-free milk. This led to near-constant stomach distress, but quite frankly I was too lazy to really change my cheese-loving habits.

2) My sister is vegetarian, and has been for awhile. I used to make fun of her. And then, as part of an overall attempt to have a better relationship, I started to try to understand - and support - her dietary choices. She is vegetarian because she just honestly doesn’t like meat. She is also in very good shape and very healthy in general and didn’t seem to be starving (though we did have some discussions about potato chips + nuts not being a balanced meal for her…). So I thought I’d give eating her way a try.

3) I have wanted to get into better shape and lose some weight for awhile. But as anyone who has ever done this knows, wanting to and actually doing it are two completely different things. For some reason, I just sort of knew that 2012 would be my year to do this. I joined a gym, started exercising and thinking about my overall health.

4) I caught up with an old high-school friend who, through a completely random twist of fate, happened to have become vegan about a year ago. I didn’t know this. In fact, the last time I saw her a few years ago, she took me out to her favourite hamburger joint. She looks absolutely amazing and had a real glow about her. She also happens to be one of the most bare-bones rational people I know (so forget any ideas about hippies, Birkenstocks, hairy armpits or vintage clothing) and so to find that she had deliberately chosen veganism was very intriguing. She is not one to do something lightly and she was never easily swayed. I asked her about a million questions and was really surprised and interested by her answers. Add to this that I ate vegan with her and the food was delicious.

All of these factors sort of converged and I think I had my last meat, egg, or dairy on Wednesday, 28th December over lunch with a friend. I ordered a huge, greasy hamburger. As usual, I loved every bite. And as per usual, I really regretted it later when I felt bloated and a bit nauseated. It was the first time I had really thought it through, but that was generally how I felt after eating any red meat - whether it was a fast food hamburger or a super expensive cut of steak. I then started thinking about how I felt after eating poultry - and the answer was that while I didn’t feel ill, I usually ended up feeling bloated and just generally overfull.

I wondered - what would happen if I gave it all up? I already knew that dairy wasn’t my friend. I’d figured out that meat wasn’t doing me any real favours either. All that remained were eggs and fish - two things that, honestly, were kind of hard to part with (as I’ve always loved scrambled eggs and I’ve spent the past several years as a die-hard sushi addict). But I love a challenge and I’m not really one to do things halfway so I figured why not try it?

My bargain with myself was that if I absolutely hated it, or felt sick, or as if I were missing anything, I would quit. I’m happy to report that I haven’t quit - and what’s more, I feel amazing.

I have had a few moments where I’ve had to compromise, or go hungry - simply because the world is not always vegan-friendly. In both instances, I ended up eating a small amount of fish. I didn’t beat myself up over it, but I have made a conscious effort to try to not eat any animal products if at all possible.

What is really interesting is that I am not one of those people who turned vegan due to animal rights issues. I did it for my health. But now that I am doing it, I’ve been reading (a lot) about veganism and what I have learned is something that I won’t be able to un-learn. I’m not going to use this blogspace to preach the benefits of veganism. The information is widely available if you’re interested. Even if you think it’s silly, I do encourage you to read up about what is in the food we eat everyday (veggies and grains included). It is a sobering and somewhat frightening experience. I honestly think the only way I would be able to eat meat again now is if I personally raised the animal myself. That is not bloody likely as a) I’m a diva and hate mess and farms are messy; b) I would probably make friends with the animals and then end up living in a big house with my pets Mr. Pig, Mr. Cow and Mr. Chicken.

So that is the big change in my life right now. It has been really fascinating and, if I’m honest, a bit challenging and frustrating at times. A few things I’ve learned:

• My friends are awesome. Since I told them, they have gone out of their way to ensure we go to eat at veg-friendly restaurants. One of my friends even had me over and cooked a vegan meal! (It was excellent, btw)


• Breakfast can be very hard if you don’t eat at home. In America, the Starbucks oatmeal is vegan if made with water. In the UK, they sell something called porridge (which is not, no matter what anyone tells you, the same as oatmeal - trust me) and it is mixed with milk powder. Other breakfast options almost all include egg or animal products. I know that it is possible to make amazing vegan muffins, croissants, etc but I don’t live/work near any good vegan bakeries. So I make sure I either eat oatmeal + nuts + dried fruit for breakfast at home - or if I’m running late, I eat a banana and nuts and a half peanut butter sandwich if I can find one.


• Eating vegan is delicious! I haven’t cooked in earnest in years (I don’t really have anyone to cook for beside myself, and I think we’ve already established that up until recently I wasn’t very choosy about what went into my mouth). My idea of a homecooked meal used to be some microwaved cheddar mashed potatoes, microwaved steamed veggies and a big hunk of some sort of meat. I am still a novice at making vegan food but I’ve already figured out how wonderful different spices are, and how great vegetables can taste on their own. For example, the other night I just threw together what was in my fridge and ended up with wholewheat rotilli pasta and a sauce of red/green/yellow peppers + celery + carrots + onions + tomatoes + chickpeas + olive oil + spices. It was healthy and really, really good. And yes, it filled me up!


• I actually eat more now than I ever used to. I eat less at each meal but more frequently throughout the day. I’m pretty much hungry all the time - and I mean a real hunger, not the “omg I’m starving” feeling that we all claim to have. But I’m snacking differently. Because I’m limited in what I can eat, I snack on fresh veggies, nuts, berries, peanut butter, and whole grains.


• It will probably be a long time before I stop missing cheese. Or at least that’s what I think now. Who knows - maybe in a few months it won’t even matter. But I do still miss the idea of a cheesy pizza. I get around that by remembering how I felt after I ate the pizza, and also by reminding myself about a) how that cheese was produced and b) what is actually in the cheese.


• “Ethnic” foods are the easiest to eat and these kind of establishments tend to be really reasonable about making sure the food is vegan. Indian, Thai, Japanese, African, Chinese - all of them are great. I’ve become a huge devotee of Indian food.

I’m discovering that there are some amazing vegan friendly restaurants in London - places I would never expect. I recently dined at Circus London (very cool place) which is a very on-trend restaurant and was really surprised to see menu items marked out as veg-friendly. The staff was great about ensuring that all my dishes were vegan, and that I had enough to eat.

I also went to The Gate and had an amazing meal. The starter was this - “potato cake filled with indian-spiced baby corn, french beans, carrots, courgettes & green peas pan-fried & served with coriander chutney” (doesn’t that sound amazing? because it tasted delicious!!) and my main dish was a tagine, made with “fennel, carrot, celeriac, sweet potato, parsnip, dates & pickled lemon baked with fragrant moroccan spices & served with a pomegranate, pistachio mixed herb cous-cous”. It was to die for. 

I’ve made it a point not to be an evangelist about my dietary choices. If people ask, I’ll explain - but you won’t catch me throwing paint at fur wearers or out at some animal rights protest. That may offend some vegans, but it is my choice. I also don’t plan on beating this point to death in my blog - I will post updates on how things are going, and also any amazing recipes that come my way - but there is more to my life than what I’m currently eating!

I’m looking forward to an amazingly healthy and fun 2012. I’ve got all the time during the Olympics booked off and now I just have to decide where I’m going (because I most certainly am NOT going to be in London for that mess). I got a promotion at work and so while that’s more responsibility, it also gives me a chance to work on more fun projects. I’m getting a new boss and some new team members, too, so lots of change. 2012 is pretty much the year of big change. And you know what? I’m okay with it. I welcome it.

Next post is going to be around my other challenge for 2012 - getting my budget under control and working on paying off my credit card debt. I am not a budgeter; I pay my bills and pretty much spend anything left over. This is not sustainable behaviour and I really don’t fancy living in a shopping cart in my old age. Also, I really want to travel and I can’t afford to do that if I’m subsidising American Express with my interest payments ;)

—-

PS - 2012 is the year of Alan Turing because (according to Wikipedia, which we all know never lies) it has been been designated as such to “commemorate the mathematician, computer pioneer, and code-breaker on the centennial of his birth”. Kind of cool that 2012 is the year of the code-breaker and everyone is still trying to piece out the Mayan code…