Princesses are Always in Peril.

I'm ten years old, playing Super Mario Bros with my two older brothers on the floor in my room. The games and consoles are outdated, and have been forgotten by their original owners since they were long ago replaced by newer, advanced versions while these gems were passed to me. Yet, here they are, those original players one and two, sitting with me on my floor playing a game while the tears begin to dry on my blotchy, red face.
The doctor my mother had taken me to six months earlier declared that I had ADD, that I should be taking Ritalin, and that I would be much more manageable for her while taking them.
The medication makes me awkward and painfully antisocial, which would be difficult enough to deal with had I grown up among my current classmates. But all the kids I bonded with way back in kindergarten are all 2,000 miles away, where they ought to be, where I feel I ought to be. There is no loyalty to depend on at school. There is no one to see a difference in my behavior. No one, save my brothers.
They, not my parents, witness my coming down off the medication my mother insists on force-feeding me every morning. They witness the shakes, both physical and emotional. They sit with me when I sob from the frustration of not understanding what is happening to me, to the point where my lungs hurt inside my chest and I can't breathe. They, not my parents, sit with me, distracting me, probably as scared as I am.
But their voices, if used at all in this matter, fall upon deaf, stubborn ears. Their concerns probably meet the same response I get every night when I tell her how much I hate taking the medication, "The doctor said there may be some adverse reactions, at first. Stop being dramatic. Do your homework."
Or, perhaps merely witnessing my struggle every morning deters them from seeing a point. A woman so bent on drugging me up does not seem open to the opinions or viewpoints of others. Except, of course, unless that person's name is followed by, 'MD.'
At the ripe age of ten, I will experience what it feels like to come off cocaine - an experience I will find myself in much later in life, after experimenting with drugs at the seemingly generous will of a future boyfriend I wish to impress. I'll recognize the dip in emotions, the aches, the lack of hunger, the cloudy head. The memories of the toll this feeling took on my childhood will ultimately be what turns me off to cocaine and, as a result, I'll be weary of taking any recreational drugs and eventually drinking altogether. This will be the only perk of the whole situation, and in fact, that behavior doesn't win me any gold stars among drinkers as I age, causing me to remain somewhat antisocial and aloof for life.
I will always fear others trying to control me for their own benefit, especially women.  It will destroy many relationships.
I will have no respect for the older generation, to the point of seeming cold and ungrateful.
I will not want to have any children, and dread settling down, for fear of being the next generation of this type of parental behavior.
But, for now, my brothers try to make me laugh, a banter I am not able to join in on. I don't understand why yet, but they instinctively leave me out of it.
It's my turn and I pick the Princess for the chosen level.
"You're like a princess," one says, thinking incorrectly that this would cheer me up.
"They're always in peril, something's always going wrong for them," he explains.
"No," I gesture to the screen at the pink dressed icon floating around the bombs and waterfalls.
"Well, if you aren't a princess, what are you?" Later in life, he'll learn how to control a conversation to make you think things like this were your ideas. He'll be so good at it that it concerns me, but for now I'm not convinced by his claim. After all, it doesn't feel like someone's coming to rescue me.
My other brother puts his arm protectively on my shoulders and responds calmly and quietly, "She's someone who is going to get far away from here one day."
A tear rolls down my cheek and he adds, "We both will."
Years later, after this brother moves three thousand miles away on his own, he'll give me the Dr. Seuss book, "Oh The Places You'll Go," with an inscription that LA was made for me and I will remember this moment.
The hard part is over, my cheeks will be dry by the time we hear the garage opening for her, in about an hour. It will still be midnight before my heart will stop racing and for my brain to stop reeling. And then it will all happen again, more or less, tomorrow.

Today's Meditation: Trusting Your Own Instinct and Running With It.

In the past, it has occurred to me that I don't like recipes because of how restrictive they are. A recipe leaves no room for your own instincts, no respect for your own voice saying, "do this," and "use that." This is dangerous because  your inner voice (which urges you to favor one ingredient over another) is very, very well in tune with what your body needs nutritionally, whereas a recipe is like a guess from someone you don't know.

You want more protein because you're working out. Your body wants more carbs, but you've decided carbs are bad because some diet you half read about (and yes, reading the method of a diet without researching the criticisms is only HALF reading about a diet) is counterproductive to meeting your goal of being healthy. Cutting out hummus because chick peas contain carbs is silly. If you want to cut out carbs, stop eating tortilla chips, french fries, and candy. Do not lump the carbohydrates from the former in the same category as the latter when chick peas contain an abundance of nutrition that, if you're craving hummus, your body is telling you it needs. Dip some carrots and/or sliced peppers in your hummus and enjoy.

Diets are a huge pet peeve of mine in the same way that recipes are: they devalue your inner knowledge of yourself, cut off communication from your instincts, and deny you the opportunity to listen to what you really need in order to to give yourself what you subconsciously already knew you needed to be healthy.
Don't diet and exercise for a "beach body" because any body in a well fitting bathing suit is ready for the beach. Dude.

Eat healthfully and exercise so that you are better in contact with your inner voice, with what your body needs and is asking for - do it to be healthy inside and out. It'll work out, vanity-wise, but that really shouldn't be a goal. Released endorphins and permanent giddy-lik-happiness, guilt free lifestyle, pride in your accomplishments: may those be your health and physical goals.

Today, I overslept, still ran for 15 minutes (total distance: 1.37 miles). After I returned home, showered and dressed; I started craving something different from my usual greek yogurt with chia seeds. I started craving a blend of banana, peanut butter, and chocolate. So, trusting my inner voice, I put a banana, some PB, and a heavy splash of chocolate soy milk into the blender and ran that. Then, I scooped it into tupperware to eat at work, mixing in a moderate sprinkling of chia seeds. The mixture had thickened by the time I made it to my desk, and the chia seeds had transformed into a gelatinous tapioca-like consistency. This little breakfast was sooo good.

Sure, I couldn't eat it every day, but there was something about the way I was craving it - this mixture that I hadn't even really known existed until I made it - shows me that I have an ability to listen to my body in a way that benefits my taste buds and my nutritional needs. Yay, me.

My little vegan-tapioca concoction totaled 504 calories, 27 grams of fat, 58 grams of carbs, 17 grams of fiber, and 16 grams of protein. So, while I'm not exactly cutting back on the carbs, calories, or salt; I also didn't think about food again until 1 pm. For those four hours, I didn't need a snack, my body was content - happy, even - and healthy because all those things have nutritional value beyond numbers and a small part of the impact.

How degrading to food to be classified do crudely. Nothing should be broken down and defined by small parts of what's inside them; especially when the chemical compounds that lead to those classifications all react differently inside the body than similar chemical compounds found in other foods which lead to the came classification. Beyond that, even; when ingredients are combined, the body digests everything differently.

The same claim of degradation could be said for recipes. The same recipe that makes an excellent tomato sauce made from fresh ingredients in Plainfield, New Jersey with taste very different in Cross Plains, Wisconsin. That is because the ingredients grown locally will have different minerals from the soil and the water, resulting in a different taste. Everyone knows the basic ingredients to a tomato sauce, even if they think they don't. The best meals happen without a recipe, but from an instinct.

Your inner voice knows what your body wants - not what is easy, not what is simple, but what nutrients your body truly wants - and it tells you every day.  All you have to do is listen.