And she returned right when her appetite did.
It's ironic how I wrote about my gastronomic fantasy just a few days before this experience. As all my friends know, I love eating! What's better is that the Lord blessed me with a fairly active metabolism so I can eat hefty amounts of food every now and then. Though still I'm no hourglass; I don't know where the waist ends and the hips start. Being more straight than curvy, I make up by having proper posture. But that's beside the point.
I woke up some Saturday ago with this slightly nauseous feeling in my head. It was the last day of Hermeneutics class. I passed on breakfast and went ahead to prepare so I will be early for our final quiz. I resolved to just have my usual Saturday morning breakfast of coffee and crackers in the class since they are offered during sessions for free. But there was a change of plan when a good classmate of mine bought me a slice of banana bread for no reason at all. I expected myself to relish and enjoy my upgraded breakfast when I noticed, I'm not very interested with it at all. I weakly nibbled on the delicious bread. I'm not a breakfast person so I thought that was understandable. Now this is what I did not understand.
Wanting to celebrate the conclusion of our Hermeneutics session, my motherly classmates brought pansit, lumpiang shanghai, putong galapong and rice. It was a nice FREE meal so Anne dug in…
…and felt dizzy at her third mouthful.
After that, I had to force myself to eat just so I'd be able to finish what little I put on my plate. My tongue said it was tasty but my body and brain was telling me to stop. I felt sick the rest of the day and it didn't stop there. My body was better the next day but for the next two days, my appetite disappeared. Just like that. POOF! That felt so weird for me. Even if I was served chunky spaghetti or inihaw na liempo with suka (which I was craving for for two weeks), I only ate around four spoonfuls and I'm done. I can't even say I enjoyed it. I just tasted the smoked, slightly salty meat, the tangy vinegar and onions and that's it. IT EVEN BORED ME! Sheesh… Would you believe that? No eye-rolling, breath-taking thrill.
That so freaked me out. I have become one of those ridiculous people who see eating as a necessity more than a pleasurable privilege. I became someone who just pushed their food around their plate, eventually leaving half the serving uneaten. I have become one of those I thought I CAN NEVER understand. Now, I'm even able to empathize with them because I realized, these food-pushers have such a sad, sad life. I went through this for three days.
Just before I became depressed about it, I sautéed some cabbage and fried a fish and shared this lunch with my husband. I started chomping and nodding in appreciation and smiled. What do you know? The zombie is gone and I am back! I guess the strange virus flew and left me. I brightened up the moment the salty, sweet, sour and bitter are not just data sensed by my nerves. These tastes went back to becoming blessings, pure guiltless pleasures! Well, at least provided that you eat right, heehee! I learned that as long as I have the ability to enjoy the simple blessing of eating, it won't matter if it's just veggies and fish or a sirloin steak. I'm glad it didn't take a complicated meal to make me discover that goodness.
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