Strange Freedom

I've hit the August wall, that time of year when I long for autumn and the end of humidity. It's been particularly bad this year with so much rain, but as my Dad would say "good for the crops."

Still it would be nice to get a full night's sleep and not wake up at 3 am because I'm way too hot or too cold. I'm thankful for A/C but I long for central air.

I think Ben Stein put it nicely:



On the upswing, my gluten free life continues and I am feeling much much better. I'm going to my doctor's this week to request a blood test for celiac disease. Even if it comes back negative, I think I will still stay gluten free because I have been feeling so good.

That's probably why I've been finding work unbearable. Once again, I find myself sitting at a desk wondering how I got there. I'm twitching to do other things. I need to radically change my life.

It's funny. As my physicality improves, there is almost a part of me that doesn't want an answer. In a way, it's easier to always be in pursuit of an answer than to find it and then have another decision to make. A compensatory lifestyle has its own strange comfort.

I recently picked up The Gluten Free Bible by Jax Peters Lowell. She talks about how food is such a primal need that it's vital you go through a mourning period, that yes, this new life means a pasta free Italy and a croissant free Paris. At the least, you can't just grab a bagel when you feel like it.

I find I'm not in mourning for food at all. If avoiding certain foods is all it takes to feel better, then fine. I'm all over it.

I think what I do mourn is the lost opportunity and the sense of isolation. I keep thinking about what I could have accomplished the last 20 years if I'd had the energy of a normal person and the fact that my fatigue issues overall are just one of those things that people don't "get" about me. I don't think people understand how you can be tired all the time if you can't point to some definitive cause of your fatigue. I'm just grateful that I'm feeling better generally these days and I hope it continues so I can focus on making the next 20 years the counterpoint to the first.