Idle and Blessed

For the past 3 months or so, I’ve been on a low-fodmap diet (weird and hard, google it) and seeing a nutritionist to guide me through the process of getting my IBS food sensitivities under control. Like any drastic lifestyle change, this diet has rocked my world, influenced every eating decision, and taught me so much about myself in the process. This post is not about what I can/can’t eat, don’t worry – but it is about what this journey has been teaching me about life, some important lessons to learn I think, no matter what your food philosophy is. For one, as someone with just an incredibly sensitive stomach (eye roll emoji), I’ve learned to accept that just like all emotions are valid, all feelings of pain and discomfort are valid. The measure of a person is not how perfectly they ate and therefore felt. It’s not how few fodmaps entered their system on a given day. What matters is not my nutritional perfection on this journey but my ability to hold it all, learn from every da...

I have the gift of stinginess. The other week I made Taylor put his last piece of broccoli in a tupperware because he was going to throw it away. He ate that piece of broccoli the next day and saved us probably a whole cent. Made me happy, I tell you. But I really shouldn't call it stinginess. I just don't like to waste things. If there's perfectly good toothpaste in the bottom of the tube, why open a new one? I like to think even if I had a million dollars I would still use that last bit of toothpaste, because, you know, landfills and fossil fuels. But it's also very exhausting to save all the leftover things of the world. I have no earthly idea why, but there is this sprawling garden near our apartment in somebody's sideyard that they don't tend at all. It's so large to my urban eyes, the plots of overgrown vegetable plants and wild things all twisted up together. I run by this place nearly every day, and never a soul is there. All summer I was ima...