craving comfort

five or six years ago, i started every morning with a double hit of a steroid inhaler. this was a prescriptive act resulting from constant bouts of inflamed lung tissue and periods of unexplained illness. it was part of managing a condition i didn’t really understand, but one clue led to the next until i realized the things that i craved the most were the ones that were making me sick.

i have strange allergies, strange in the sense that the more i want something the more it makes me sick. being an irish catholic kid who loves asian/indian food and microbrew beer, or who started his day with a vente latte, made it all that much harder when i realized potatoes, rice, yeast and milk made me sick. i went to the people i loved and told them what i thought this was the cause, they thought i was nuts, but i removed the items from my plate anyway.

when you do something like this, you are not sure how you can live without the things you love. they are part of you, part of your day, they make you happy. irish catholics use food and beverage to celebrate events, and to assist in mourning. you ask yourself, how can you cut the comfort from your life? where would you find the strength?

day one is just strange; day two is worse; day three the cravings begin. people around you are helping but it doesn’t make it any easier that you are living in an uncomfortable place of self-denial. how can you deal with the feelings of need? on day seven, you wake up and you realize you slept through the night and feel rested. you also realize you can breathe, for the first time in over a year, you can get a full breath of air when you wake up. you pick up your inhaler but put it back down; it’s the last time in years you need to start your day with a pipe full of medication.

fast forward a few years, you are in a new place in life. you don’t have the foods you have come to rely on, you have all new things to pick from which at first is great, but you realize these come with a cost. they are causing the same reactions you suffered from in the past. so you look for things that are more like home. you can’t find a perfect match, but you find items that give you a warm feeling of comfort. the downside is they also cause issues and the ones you really enjoy are more expensive and harder to find. cravings are there, and you question if these things are good for you or not. is health or comfort what you really want?

how is it that even when we know better, the things that we desire are the things that make us sick. they make it so we can’t breathe; they take our sleep away, leave us feeling itchy and scratchy. but we still want them. is the immune response a result of prior overindulgence, or is it protection against future potential damage?

does our body know things we have not yet realized? or are we just a set of systems that we need to work harder understand? life and diet would be so much easier if your head made the immediate connection; i ate that, i got sick, maybe i should stop eating it.

but have you tried the aloo tikki at saffron? it’s a mix of crispy crunch and starchy pleasure that could be denied by itself, but when you add butter chicken, garlic batura and mango lasse… there is no chance to walk away.

i am craving comfort, i want to taste the things i love. bring on the benedryl.