"most people have no idea how good their body is designed to feel."

nic and i are coming to the end of a month without refined sugar or alcohol.

i also made a promise to myself to eat (for the most part (my tiny realistic caveat for myself)) things that occur in nature. i didn't want to omit fruit or oil or nut butter or other things i deem delicious and necessary for life, but i simply wanted to eat things that exist in the actual world. preferably single ingredient things, but at the very least food with ingredients i recognized as food items. no maladextrose number 259.

[image 1: trip one of 87129 to the grocery store this month, 

plus a visual of my life savings, before ingestion]

several people, who knew i was embarking on such a sadly daunting (for me) adventure, have repeatedly asked me throughout the month a. if i am still on the wagon and then, subsequent to my yes answer, b. if i feel nonstop incredibly amazing.

i definitely wish i felt nonstop incredibly amazing. that i could aver that removing those two very toxic elements from my life had dramatically altered both my body and well-being. and, while i'm positive they have from a health standpoint, i don't feel or look so amazingly different.

now that i've said that, i realize it's basically not true. i have, for the first time since i can remember (it has surely been more than ten years) slept through a handful of nights, without waking up to pee, readjust my pillows, blow my nose, fish around for ear plugs, sleep eat or do any of the other weird, neurotic things i've been known to do at night. i do feel like i have more energy. i have seen changes in my body. i feel stronger. and i find a strange amount of comfort and power in saying no to things that i would have previously succumbed to.

please reference: me, eating three donuts one morning immediately upon arrival at school after eating breakfast at home.

so yes, i do feel different. but i don't feel like some pinnacle of vibrancy and health.

but the good news is, i'm trying and that, in itself, feels best. i am trying to take care of myself instead of asserting how impossible it is to take care of myself. 

i am struggling to not obsess over the number on the scale, because if i'm running every day, not eating too much and eating healthy foods, going to the gym or workout classes regularly, and generally winning at life then WHY AM I NOT A MODEL?

yes. i'm working on letting that go.

i'm working on taking care of myself for the sake of taking care of myself and living a happy, healthy life. i've been waking up early to meditate, drinking tea, stretching, slowing down, eating with deliberateness and awareness and doing all the crunchy, hippie things that once upon a time made me nauseous to even hear.

which leads me to the second item i've been asked, which is if i plan on drinking and eating sugar once the month is over.

i am certainly not planning on staying up til 12 am, february 1st, so i can guzzle bourbon and crush some cake. i will likely drink a beer on superbowl sunday and, more likely than not, it will not make me feel amazing. or maybe it will and i will wonder why i ever for a moment stopped ingesting the pure bliss that is craft beer. 

i will always love beer. i will always love sugar.

because they taste amazing.

i will definitely eat a donut again and i will definitely drink a beer again.

but what i'm ever so sloooowly approaching is the realization that things that are momentarily gratifying are not always worth it. which i, of course, knew, but am just now beginning to grasp in reality rather than just in theory.

i won't be able to abstain for a month, achieve a perfect body and mind (which i am soooooooooooooooooooooo far from anyway), and then revert to old ways.

the last two days, i went to a training for school. we were learning about a program that uses physical exercises to activate children's vestibular sense. aka the inner ear. this woman started out as a reading specialist and realized children were struggling, because their eyes and ears were not working to process information in a way that even made it possible to read. their eyes weren't focusing; their auditory input was all wrong; they couldn't even begin to process information efficiently enough to make sense of anything on a page.

she basically said we're not making our kids work hard enough. we cart them around and strap them into 8000% security items that don't allow their bodies to move an inch and then plop them in front of tvs and ipads. they're doing plenty of looking around, but their bodies aren't connecting what they see with motor skills and everything's ending up a disorganized, sloppy mess. 

so she's created a series of physical exercises to challenge their bodies, stimulate and build strength in the inner ear, and in turn unleash an amazing ability to process information that leads to better academic, social, and behavioral performance.

this is all semi-extraneous information, which i'm mostly sharing because it was interesting. but i'm thinking about it, because many people in the training asked, how long do they have to do it until they're better? 

as in, when can they stop?

as in, how long do we have to exercise until we're fixed?

which was ludicrous to me. because i realize it's not sustainable to have a kid doing a jelly roll on the floor, then cross lateral knee touches, then a bean bag toss, then a balance beam every day of their life so they can continue to excel at reading, but the idea, the action of keeping your body in motion to maintain physical and mental health-- that doesn't have an expiration. you can't do it and then you're fixed.

you have to work and work and work and work and work and work and work and then you die. 

you never get to stop working.

you have to constantly take care of yourself.

this is what's amazing to me. this is what i think i am just finally arriving at, at age 30, end of january, almost six months into living in kentucky.

i have to take care of myself. i am the ONLY person that is going to take care of me.

people can love the shit out of me. they can support me and hug me and encourage me and stand beside me and write me beautiful letters and tell me beautiful things and give me everything i ever wanted, but at the end of the day, it's my mouth chewing up the food, and my legs choosing to sit down or keep climbing.

i cannot lament, complain, rationalize, excuse, or love my way into health or out of the responsibility for it.

i can sneak snacks when no one's looking and it doesn't make me healthy. i can tag myself at 24 hour fitness seven days a week and it doesn't make me healthy. i can begrudge people, who get what i think i deserved, envy people, who look how i'd like to look, condemn people, who live in ways that i deem improper, complain about all the things that are keeping me from living the kind of life i might even begin to find satisfying, but it will fix absolutely fucking nothing.

my life is a choice. i am the only one, who makes the choices. and i have got to choose for it to be good.

i have got to wake up early to sit and think about what i'm grateful for for fifteen minutes. i've got to pause for a cup of tea for a minute instead of rushing to look at my phone. i've got to pack a lunch the night before, so i don't cram cheez-its and diet coke in my mouth when i'm crumbling from hunger at school. i've got to spend money on real food. i've got to run or walk outside on my lunch instead of sitting in the break room, griping about what's wrong. i've got to go to the gym, when i just want to put on sweatpants and watch tv. i've got to keep pushing. i've got to say thank you for what i am and have and can become. i've got to try and try and try and work and work and work and then i'll die and it will have been the best life.

i am the only person, who can take care of me. that is true for my body and my heart and my soul's health.

i think i actually just realized that today, which is why i'm writing all these words.

i am entirely responsible for myself.

I AM ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR MYSELF.

it took me thirty and a half years to realize it.

shit.

here goes nothing.

write me something.

every year for Christmas, my dad asks me for the same thing. 

write me something, he says.

this year, despite always knowing what the answer will be, i asked, and he responded, write about moving to kentucky.

i'm flattered, always, that he asks. that his favorite gift could simply be just the words from my head. but there's also a selfish twinge of wishing he'd ask for something easier. that instead of the time and energy of words, he'd ask for a book. or tongs for the grill. or a pine candle. something i can order off amazon, the lazy voice in my head requests.

but that's not what christmas is. it's not an exchange of internet orders in vaguely comparable amounts. when i can, i like to buy things local, thoughtful, so overly relevant and perfect that sometimes it nearly becomes impossible. so i hush that lazy voice and thank my dad for wanting the things that take time and effort and love.

this year has taken effort and love. louisville has taken effort and love. i mean that in the best way. i needed it. i needed to try. needed to do something other than drifting along in the amalgamation of things that had developed into a good, but ultimately unsatisfying life over the last 12 years in the bay area. i needed deliberateness. i needed to chose. and i did it.

i'm not sure how to describe it, if it's even really possible to write about the move as a whole. i've still barely realized it's true. now, almost six months later, i have moments where i say to myself, i live in kentucky. and i laugh.

and i laugh and i laugh. 

it's both strange and wonderful how quickly you can choose a new life. it's new. it's also very the same.

let me first clear this up. louisville is wonderful. louisville is a big, busy, colorful, changing, dynamic city. i do not live on a farm. all people know seem to know about kentucky (myself included really, before i came here) is the derby and fried chicken and bourbon. i said i was moving and most people just said, fried chicken?

not even a complete question. they'd just look at me blankly and utter those two words, as if offering something vaguely contextual might start the conversation they couldn't even think how to begin. that was their only understanding of kentucky as a state. why would someone move there?

i can't say much for kentucky as a whole, because i honestly haven't seen it, but louisville is awesome. it is many of the things i love about san francisco, but in the process of becoming. it's music and carefully crafted food and beer and coffee. it has tons of museums, sweet little shops filled with handmade treasures, and the best chocolate chip cookie i've ever eaten. it has people with ideas; parking lots turned into a weekend event space with food trucks and outdoor movies, free weekly concerts at the waterfront during summer, festival after festival, the best antique shops and flea markets, magbooth and its free photo strips. it has beautiful old buildings aside sprawling, opulent homes. it has quaint little shotgun houses and an abundance of porch swings. it is filled with greenery and color and life. 

it also has extended strips of unused buildings. dilapidated areas that are creepy and unkempt. it's waiting though. not declining, but rather it's slowly becoming. instead of acupuncture clinics on every corner, there are a few. instead of locally roasted coffee every step, they're few and far between. the profusion of fast food is unmatched by the food scene's curated, sustainable counterpart. it is, truthfully, more of what i typically reject than more of what i love. there's a lot of fast food and styrofoam and waste. but it's changing. and i value that. it's not saturated yet.  if you want to start a store or a restaurant or a practice, you can. there's space and resources to become.

louisville and i are a lot alike in that way then. we're both unfolding. we're taking the space to develop into something wonderful. we're not yet done.

there's also this boy i love. 

it's wonderful. it's hard.

i love the shit out of him. we are taking our time, learning how to be together in the day-to-day. to sort out the bills and the chores. the routines. the expectations.

we sometimes have this very sobering and seemingly unromantic conversation, where we say to each other, i love you, but i could live without you.

it sounds terrible and i think many people wouldn't understand, but it's comforting somehow. it's my favorite way to have a relationship.

we're not desperate. we chose each other. we still choose each other. regularly. it's the opposite of what i was lamenting in san francisco. the routines that i had outgrown. the things that were, simply because they were before and continued to be.

nic is a constant decision. i choose him. i choose him daily. i choose him moment by moment. i look at him and think, i didn't have to do this, but i wanted to.

for once, i chose something i wanted, instead of something i felt obligated to do.

i wanted nic and i got him.

and now he's sitting here, beside me on the couch. he's reading for school and his feet are pressed up against a hot water bottle and then swaddled in a blanket. sometimes, without looking at me, he reaches for my hand and holds it for a minute. sometimes, instead of hand, i put some chopped up apple with cinnamon into his palm from the bowl at the end of the couch. i'm wearing socks and slippers and cozy pants and my clothes from the day and am sneaking heat from his hot water bottle. it's 8 o'clock. 

our life is quiet. we spend most weekends taking walks, fixing up the house, making food, binge watching netflix, playing cards, talking.

there's very little miraculous or noteworthy. i continually wait to write words down. i wait for something substantial to happen and it doesn't. i begin to write and they are the same words about how this is quieter life and i'm relishing that.

sometimes i get sad. i cry more than i should. sometimes when i get sad, i think it means i shouldn't have left san francisco. that i made a mistake somehow.

i have to consider these things. i think, if i didn't, it would mean that something was actually wrong. i think, i'm sad so i shouldn't have left.

i'm sad, i made a mistake.

but i didn't make a mistake. i'm just sad. i got sad in san francisco too. i just hadn't recently made some huge change that i could easily blame my sadness on. i got sad in san francisco, and i get sad here, and i'll get sad anywhere else i may move in life.

i feel like we spend a lot of our lives looking for the reasons we are miserable. we say, i won't be miserable when this one thing stops/ starts happening. we wait for our job to change, our situation to change, our weight to change, our hair, our partner, our backdrop, our car, our wardrobe, our financial situation to change. we are trying to wait out our misery.

but it's just our hearts and our minds. they're the ones that need to change.

so i'm working on it.

moving to louisville has given me the space to work on it and i needed that. i chose it. i knew editing my weight/ hair/ partner/ backdrop/ car/ wardrobe in san francisco was not going to create the change i knew i needed. i knew my heart and my mind needed help. i knew i could not do it there.

so now i'm here. i'm making better choices. i'm slowing down.

i moved and it seems like there should be a story to tell, but really it's just everyday life in a different background.

i moved to louisville for a change and what i got was the same girl that left six months ago. a girl in process. a girl becoming.

one of my visits home before i moved, i had a hard time. i wanted my parents to say they were happy for me, that they were glad i was going, that it was a good and right choice, that they'd visit, that they still loved me. i am the first baby to move so far away and i needed affirmation. i didn't know if it was right, even though i felt so sure i had to do it.

of course they said they loved me, of course they hugged me hard and cried a little and said they'd see me soon. but not the rest. i felt like they refused to give me the support i needed. in retrospect, i guess they probably didn't feel those things. maybe they weren't happy or sure or glad. so i cried some. a lot, actually.

and then i went anyway.

i've written so so many words. i'm spinning through a galaxy of feelings and experiences and ideas and hopes and reflections. i have not at all gotten to anything substantial.

there's a lot and there's nothing.

my dad wanted me to write about moving. clearly the above explosion of words is a much less concise way of saying: i can't. it's too much. i can't do it. i can't write about it, because i don't yet understand it. i am too close to understand it yet.

but i do know this. this what i want to say, dad. thank you for making me a girl that went anyway. thank you for making me a girl, who was brave enough to go when i was scared. who knew i'd be loved, even if you didn't love what was happening. or if you were scared too. a girl with an underlying sense of security. thank you for helping me become a girl with a good enough heart and mind to know when that heart and mind needed some serious nourishing.

thank you for keeping me moving. not my body place to place. not my job. not my wardrobe. thank you for keeping my heart moving. for keeping it fresh and healthy. thank you for making me feel always loved enough to be brave. thank you for always encouraging me to follow my heart, open my heart, and give from my heart. thank you for teaching me to be the best kind of person. 

i feel, for the first time, a little proud of the girl i am and the way i'm living my life. that's a gift you gave me. 

the gift of the possibility of a girl, who one day found her way to loving and caring for herself. what big girl dreams i am just finally beginning to realize. 

thank you so much.

some words in exchange is not too much to ask at all.