Diet Ugh.

I found this great recipe recently for vegan lemon cake. It’s super easy to transition it to gluten free, so I jumped all over it. I was going to go to the grocery store after work on a mission to get all of the required ingredients and I was going to make it, damn it, because I need some cake in my life as of late.

Truly. I’d kick a puppy for some decent baked goods right now.

Not really, but I really want decent baked goods and I have yet to find any that are not total garbage or something that I can’t eat because of an errant ingredient, like eggs. Usually eggs.

Damn you, eggs.

So I’m in the grocery store on the hunt for these ingredients and I remembered back to my last conversation with my naturopath. She has been trying in earnest to nudge me toward being what she calls a paleovegan. No more meat, no more cheese, and of course, no more eggs.

So I’m in the grocery store and I’m finding it remarkably easy to find the ingredients that I need. I remarked it to myself even.

You know what my very next thought was?

“Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I should give it a try. She made it sound really simple.”

Then next?

“I’m already more than halfway there. I already don’t eat dairy at all outside of cheese, and my meat intake is negligible, and all easily substituted by beans and other things that will fill me up. I think I could do this. I ate that way for six straight weeks and I can’t deny how amazing I felt.”

I WAS TALKING MYSELF INTO IT.

UGH.

WHAT IS THE SORCERY THAT THIS WOMAN USED TO GET ME TO THIS PLACE.

So I tried it for this work week and it wasn’t terrible (I actually felt pretty energetic and fantastic), but it’s not super sustainable for me. It’s a lot of work that I’m not really in a mental place to do. (Talk to me in six months and things may be different.) So, what I’ve decided is that I’m going to find a middle ground.

I think what that’s going to look like for me is being a low dairy (rare cheese instead of multiple times daily) pescatarian. I’ve got to see how my doctor feels about that, but that’s where I am currently. I see her in a couple of weeks, so for now, that’s what I’ll do.

In other news, I start at my new position on Monday. It’s all orientation that first day and I’ll be there once a week until mid-October when I make The Big Transition. I set up my office yesterday and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

This isn’t a super great picture, but I’ll get more on Monday. It is alarmingly clear how much I need some art in there, so I’ve enlisted the help of my very favorite six-year-old to make some that I can hang. I can’t wait! 

I think I’ve finally figured it out.

I operate as a liberal in a family full (but not entirely) of conservatives. A die-hard Democrat in a family full (but not entirely) of Republicans. Politics has come up a lot since the 2016 elections and at times it has gotten super heated, but at this point, I avoid it. Like, get-up-and-walk-away-from-the-conversation-without-a-word-and-no-I-don’t-care-that-we-are-eating-dinner-so-I’ll-be-eating-with-the-kids-thanks kind of avoiding. I’m just tired of talking about politics with people who are only interested in shouting their viewpoints and not listening. (And also now watch as I put myself in the exact position that I just described. I’m aware of the irony here, just in case you were worried that I wasn’t.)

And it’s never the liberals in the family who bring up politics, amusingly enough. Maybe it’s because we don’t constantly feel the need to justify ourselves.

I finally figured out my internal stuff about it and why I react this way. (Snort. It only took three years.) It isn’t because I don’t care. It truly isn’t. And my beef isn’t even with all republicans - just loud Trump supporters, because that’s all who seem to assert their position loudly and aggressively without prompting as if I want to hear it.

The reason why I avoid these conversations is because I’m a pretty empathetic person. I know that if I listen long enough, I’ll start to find their position understandable.

I never, ever want to understand a position like the ones that trump (and his supporters) hold. And yes, I added that parenthetical point because if you voted for him and aren’t now actively walking yourself back and doing what you can to change the tide (and I’m not even talking about going out on primary day and voting democrat - there are tons of other ways), you support what he’s doing. Full stop.

I don’t ever want to understand being able to justify voting for someone like him. I don’t ever want to understand the mental place of parroting back his policies or his rhetoric. I don’t ever want to understand how a person can justify voting for a person who has facilitated locking of children in cages and emboldening people who only want to hurt other people. I don’t ever want to be in a position where I understand, from any angle, hurting people on purpose.

If that makes me ignorant because I’m not interested in learning about that, then so be it. I decided a while ago that trump, his rhetoric, and the vitriol spewed by his most ardent supporters don’t deserve any real estate in my brain. Do they have some? Sure, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this right now, but I try hard to keep it as minimal as possible. Sometimes it just spews out and I am not entirely able to control it. My way of controlling the square footage that this occupies is by not participating. I won’t reinforce aggression on the part of those with whom I disagree by engaging. People can invite us to a fight all they want - it doesn’t mean that we have to accept it.