I just want a healthy body and relationship. Too much to ask?

Saturday, January 26th 2008 at 10:05pm

I keep thinking that I’ve got things under control only to find out that I’m even more lost than
before. With My boyfriend, career, and parents, and food, and everything. Let’s start with the food,
since that is really bothering me lately.

How come there is something wrong with me because I care about the health of my body? I’m really sick and tired of people looking at me sideways because I turn down soda, deserts, most snacks, and other assorted unhealthy items containing High Fructose Corn Syrup, Aspartame, Hydrogenated ‘Vegetable’ Oils, Splenda, etc. How does that make me an idiot? Not that anyone has called me an idiot because of it, but a great number of people treat me like one.

Someone said to me recently, “You only live once” in defense of drinking soda! I wanted to reach out and smack them. Instead I mumbled, exactly. You only live once. So why not live it the best you can? Why not eat the best foods you can so you can have the healthiest body that you can? What person in there right mind can talk so proudly about all the junk they eat? Apparently a lot of people can. Are they also proud of what will happen to them? Hair loss before they’re forty, maybe before they’re thirty. Intestinal holes also know as leaky gut, or irritable bowel syndrom. Nasal drip year round. Random diarrhea and constatation. Damaged immune system that can’t properly fight off minor colds. Possible brain damage. Bone loss from lack of calcium (and magnesium) combined with too much sugar intake. Sticking insulin needles in your arm every day. And the list goes on and on and on... (But don’t take my word for it, read any body by Dr. Mark Hyman.)

And you what occurred to me yesterday? What happens when I don’t want my kids eating toxins either? (When I put them on a 100% whole-food diet containing only a spattering of organic snacks.) What happens when I’m out and about with them and they’re offered desserts at a young age and I say no? I’m going to look like the bad parent. Not that I would sacrifice my child’s health to look good, but it’s still going to sting like hell to be looked down upon for doing the right thing. I want to cry every time I see a parent give their child candy. I want to scream at them “WHY ARE YOU KILLING YOUR CHILD!?!?” I want to do a lot of things that I can’t do. Even reasonably explaining everything in a mild manner in a friendly way still makes people look at me in disdain.

I understand no one wants to be lectured, but I’m not trying to lecture, I’m trying
to help, to no avail. My boyfriend, after over a year of being with me is only really beginning to see
that food does indeed affect your mood and your health (dramatically.) He might still be losing
his hair if I didn’t point out that it is a direct result of something in his diet. We discovered that
Chinese food and alcohol seem to be directly related to his hair becoming dry and brittle. Tina
believes me, but it doesn’t mean she’s going to do anything about it. And Mom, the person who
taught me to care so much about what I eat, won’t even give up her chocolate. It brings tears to
my eyes to think about it. Why doesn’t anybody care? Why is everyone content to kill
themselves slowly and painfully? Why don’t anarchists even care that they’re doing exactly what the government wants them to do? It makes me feel so alone.

After the fire my parents seemed to bond (after some struggle) in such a way that I
thought things would be different. Especially after Mary moved in and proved to be an excellent
mediator. The arguments practically stopped for a while. Now it seems like most of that
progress had backpedaled. It seems to me like Mary is often part of the argument.

When everyone thought I was pregnant there was talk of my Dad leaving. That’s
just not the sort of thing I ever want to hear, especially not when I believed I had a baby on the
way. I don’t understand how they can be together for twenty-some years, (much longer than I’ve been alive) and not find a way to resolve their disagreements. How can people so smart eat junk, argue bull-shit, and live in this constant-construction.

A pipe in the basement burst today. Mom says it’s because someone turned down
the water volume in the basement, which makes the water hotter, and therefore it burst the plastic pipe. Neither My boyfriend and I know how to do it, and I’d wager that Mary doesn’t know how either. So that leaves Dad, who of course says he hasn’t been down there in months. So who
knows what really happened.

As if we were not having enough plumbing problems with the shower. Mom has
taken apart the entire bathroom in an attempt to fix the whole thing, and to string an extra line of pipes up here so I’d have cold and hot water. (What a miracle that would be!) But it’s been
underway for over a week now, and everyone in the house is really wishing they could have a
bath, especially since it had been nearly a week when she started this project since I’d had a bath to begin with. (Seriously guys, in the winter when I barely sweat it takes me over a week to start to smell like anything at all. My feet don’t even smell in the summer time. But this really is
pushing it.)

My boyfriend and Dad however are men and men have balls, and balls stink after one
day without washing. My boyfriend has made attempts at washing up in the sink, but of course it’s
really not the same. I’ve made my attempts too, and used an awful lot of baby wipes. For my
Mom however, this is a whole other ordeal beyond using lots of wipes. She’s spending all time
that she can possibly muster working on it and having one problem after another. At this rate it
won’t be done until well into February.

I suppose I could take a bath at the location the Social Club is holding it’s
meetings (the first meeting is Monday) but that would be a little awkward. I really hate using
other people’s baths or showers. It’s hard to find the right temperature, and to keep it there, and it’s hard to get comfortable, and hard not to feel like you’re being rushed.

The Social Club is moving along more or less as expected. Jasmine and Laura and Tina are helping me just about all that they each can. I really hope there is a good turn-out
on Monday, otherwise I might look really stupid. Well, I suppose Laura, Chris, the two girls
Laura is supposed to bring and Tina will look like something. Presumably Nina (if one can ever
contact her) will be there, and she’ll bring at least a couple people. Jasmine will be at the
Tuesday meeting. So that is running it’s course at the moment, despite all of it’s hang-ups.

My boyfriend however, had an argument with me over the phone just a little while ago however. He wants to go out tonight. Him going out tonight I see as the beginning to everything just fucking up all over again. I’m not exactly sure that I’m doing this right, still. He seems to think I threatened to break up with him if he goes out tonight. That’s not at all what I meant. I was trying to say that I felt that him going out means that he’s never going to commit to me, which means break-up will come closer to being inevitable.

That thought is painful.