I’m going to talk more about taking care of myself. Here is the post from yesterday in which I explained why I did not care for the Instapot. I think one of the things that I have accepted about myself is that I am not going to do more than the bare minimum when it comes to feeding myself; I just am not. I am not going to cook more than pasta and premade sauce or rice and steamed veggies with rotisserie chicken from Cubs.
I wish I could find joy in cooking; I really do. It seems like something that would be great to get into, and you have a delicious result at the end. The problem is that–well, there are more than one issue with cooking for me.
One. I have so many food restrictions, and while substitutions are better now than they have ever been, it can be hard to find them in my local Cubs. And they’re more expensive than the regular items. I used to buy Lactaid cottage cheese, but for some reason, it’s not made any longer. I can’t find it at Cubs or online. I looked up recipes for something similar and easy to make. I tried it (out of tofu), and it was horrid. It did not taste like cottage cheese at all.
I knew better. Fake food items rarely taste like the real thing. They are better these days than thirty years ago, but you have to keep in mind that they are not the real thing. In other words, you have to try to appreciate them for what they are. There are some that are delicious in and of themselves, and there are some that are really close to what the original tastes like.
The one exception is cheese. Daiya is the closest I’ve found to the real thing, but I still wouldn’t eat it on its own. It has to be on something and melted. It has the right consistency and that boingy spring that cheese has when melted. Eat it on its own and cold, though? Hell, no.
I’m really grooving on the doing the Cane Form with the saber. It’s amazing how much it’s changed my feelings about both the cane and the saber. Before this, I would have put them both at the bottom of my weapons. Now, I have to say I love practicing with them. Would I put them at the top of my faves list? I wouldn’t go that far, but I have a new appreciation for them. I’m including the video of my teacher’s teacher doing it below. Yes, again, because it’s that amazing.
It’s one thing I love about Taiji. There is something new to learn, even in forms I’ve done hundreds of times. In addition, using the saber to do the Cane Form has made me see where I was fucking up in the Cane Form and how to do it better. As usual, it was me trying to make things too hard. The bottom line in Taiji is to use as little energy as possible to get the biggest results.
I used to strugggle with the saber. Then I found my peace with it, but I still didn’t love it. Now, I love it. Yes, doing the Cane Form with the saber changed my mind about the saber that radically. I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that suddenly, it felt right. The energy in the Cane Form works perfectly for the saber. And I finally understand why the saber is the way it is. Yes, it’s nearly a decade after I tried it for the first time, but better late than never.
I finished the third row today, and it was surprisingly easy. I was expecting to have trouble with it because it’s not easy and it gave me a fair measure of difficulty when I was brushing up on my Cane Form a month or so ago. I had forgotten a few movements since my medical crisis, and it was good to tighten it back up.
This is something my teacher has hammered in my brain over the years. Well, a version of it. She teaches me the right side of a form, and then I teach myself the left side–which is me re-teaching myself. It’s how I find out where I’m fudging things and where I’ve simply forgotten whole chunks of a form. Doing the Cane Form with the saber is tickling that same part of my brain. I’m seeing the Cane Form form a different point of view and–oh wait. This post wasn’t going to be about that. It’s so easy for me to slip back into talking about weapons because it’s my favorite thing in the world.
Back to getting into shape.. I’m scared. I do not want to go back to being anorexic. I know myself. If I start focusing on losing weight, I will slip back into disordered thinking. I will do my best not to and think I’m not going to, and then I’ll do it, anyway. Not on purpose, but that’s just the way my brain works.
I’ve been trying to add just walking around the house to my repertoire because it’s low-key and not likely to trigger my disordered thinking. Except when I count steps, I want to keep adding to the number. This has always been a problem for me. I never am satisfied with sticking to the goals I set for myself. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Asian and was raised by a very pushy Tiger Mom, but that certainly didn’t help.
In addition, since I’ve upped my Taiji/Bagua routine, I’m not sure I need to do anything else. I am very aware that I can turn anything into an obsession–in a negative way. it’s hard to draw a line between healthy and unhealthy, especially in a society that rewards unhealthy attitudes, behaviors, and ideas. The male YouTube content creators I watch talk about being fat and hating it, much in the same way women used to do back in the day (and still do)
I said back then and I maintain it now. I don’t want equality in this case to mean men are as messed up about weight and how they look as women are. And genderqueer folks, too. I want everyone to be comfortable in their bodies even if they can’t be happy about it. And it doesn’t help to hear thin-to solid guys talk about how grotesquely fat they are any more than it did to hear the same from thin-to-curvy women. It makes it worse when they give the obligatory “no one should fat shame of course, but–”
My ears shut down when I hear that particular phrase because I know what follows isn’t going to be pretty.. I heard it for decades from women, and it annoyed me/triggered me every time. I have worked hard to reach a point where I could be neutral about my body. At least on the outside. I stil had issues with my body on the inside, but I tried to keep it to myself.
Then I had my medical crisis. And I did a 180 on my body. At that point, you could not say shit to me about it because it got me through death. TWICE. What other body could say that? Not many, I’ll tell you what.
I fucking died. Twice. And I was in a coma for a week. And I walked out a week later. With no help. Sure, I was wheeled to the curb because that’s hospital policy, but I got into my brother’s car by myself. And I walked up the steps to my house under my own power. And I cuddled my beloved Shadow, loving him with all my heart.
This is what my body did for me. My fat, flabby body with muscles upon muscles. My thick as tree trunk thighs, my flat-now-slightly-cruvy-but-still-hard ass, my big ol’ boobs that are still fairly perky, and every other inch of my body. This body that has endured so much hate from others and from me quietly did its job without any fuss.
I am fucking alive because of this body. I want to honor that no matter what else I do. I would not be here without this body. I have to keep that in mind, as hard as it might be.
That’s it for today. More tomorrow.