Descent.

Two days into break. Failed waffles stuck to the iron. (Blame the lack of gluten not the maker.) Birds all excited about something... or everything. They seem to understand something more about living than most of us.

No food related pains for almost a week. Stress knots rolling, trying to self-medicate, not quite understanding how life's rhythm has changed. And myself.

I am adjusting quite well to this respite. Except... my mind is turning against me. I think. Maybe. Having enjoyed my health for some consecutive days now, I hear dangerous thoughts circulating round the tables in my mind:

I overreacted.

I was just being dramatic.

I wanted attention.

I did not want to do my work.

It was not as bad as I said it was.

I imagined it.

I am just making life difficult for no reason other than I do not know what to do if it's not.

I can eat what I want.

It is perplexing to me how easy it is to distrust my own experience. The mind and the imagination are endlessly fascinating not to mention bewildering. And the power contained therein is often amazing and frequently frightening. Moreover, this is where I find myself less than a week removed from my last food related pain and about two or three weeks from my last... immobilisation. Each day forward leaves those memories a little more wane, a little more transparent, a little less real.

I should be able to hold onto them. I should know the truth that they contain. And, today, I do.

Today that is enough.

But my grip on reality is not as strong as I would claim. And knowing what is about to happen does not change its likelihood. I will forget. I will convince myself otherwise. Call it curiosity. Dub it denial. Regard it as a lack of responsibility. Whatever sanity I have will slip and I will try again. Why?

Because the answers I have been given are not persuasive. There are still too many uncertainties. So I will keep asking questions. Not exactly the same one and not posed exactly the same way and not to anyone in particular because everyone else knows even less than I do for the most part. It is a long road to discovery, but I have the rest of my life. More than any immediate pain I may have, however acute, I loathe the thought of living with false caution and unnecessary sacrifice.

Either way, it feels like something between falling down Alice's rabbit hole and a slow but steady descent into darkness. I am not quite being hurled into the unknown, I am choosing it; but it lacks all the comforts of control all the same.

butter and honey...on rice cakes

For two weeks now I have been gluten free. It's a test run, you see, to find out if I am secretly allergic. Since wandering down this road and finding that there is more truth along it than I would like, I have been told by several people that I am handling this way better than they ever would. Truth is, I am not handing it better because, well, I'm not handling it. I'm terrified. I hate restrictions to my freedom and I can remember specific instances in my life where I thanked God in pride that I had no food allergies and could eat what I want. And now, that is threatened.

See what I did there?

I left that thought at just 'threatened'. It still has not penetrated as actual fact that gluten really is the cause of at least half my head and back pain. I still act as if this is a temporary change. I am fasting, dieting, playing an endurance game. I am not eating wheat because I do not want to. I am so deep in denial, it is all I can see.

Food is a love language. It brings people together and provides commonality and proof of humanity on a basic level. And it is best left uncomplicated. It is a unique meeting place between need and luxury.

I am not ready for it to be complicated. And I am not ready to relinquish that freedom. Truth be told, I never would be given more days or years. But time is not my privilege and I am here. Already. Now. My own body against me in this. I am not fool enough to rage against anyone else. No one and nothing has done this... except I guess God... and I wont turn my anger or my panic or whatever emotional beast this is on Him. He is the only one I could accept this from and I hate that He knows that. But I know that He will be there when I am done and spent.

I am not sure why I am posting this...I like to leave this space for art and adventures and interesting people... I suppose this is the start of some kind of adventure. Here we go.