Back in My Head
I’ve been really out of it this week, or at least it seems I’ve been feeling strange now that I’m becoming a bit more normalized. One of the characteristic difficulties of determining one’s own health, physical or mental, is that we can’t quite seem to find a window to peer out of that will give us a complete view of the building we’re in.
My brother Zack was driving through the valley, up from the Bay Area to Portland, and spent the stayed at my apartment overnight. After graduating from University in Connecticut and completing his second cross-country drive, he’s spending the summer in the Pacific NW with some friends.
As always, my brother proved to be an invaluable sounding board and yardstick for ideas and mental conditions, and spending time with him always leaves me feeling much more grounded, confident, and concrete. I don’t think anybody else can do that for me the way he does. He’s my best brother for sure.
In trying to pin down what’s gotten me so befuddled these past few days, I couldn’t tell whether it was my body’s reaction to the stress of injury and surgery, the effects of narcotic opioid painkillers, too much or too little sleep at irregular intervals, not eating enough or the right things, the onset of mild lethargic depression, or some combination of all of the above.
After getting breakfast with Zack at Cafe Coda though, I think I’ve determined that what I eat (or haven’t been eating) may have the largest effect on my stamina. A big tasty breakfast this morning has already improved my condition considerably, and chances are I might actually accomplish something akin to being productive today.
One of the side effects of the much less active lifestyle that goes along with a broken leg is a reduction of appetite. If I’m not commuting by bicycle, working on my feet for nearly nine hours a day, and then spending my free time riding through the foothills, my body is consuming vastly fewer calories. Yet somehow I’ve lost about twenty pounds in the ten weeks since I originally fractured my knee. That’s a full ninth of my previous weight.
I tried to give my brother a little bit of advice, since he’s becoming more conscientious about what and how much he eats and drinks (a shift I earnestly endorse). To be frank, the majority of the substantive waste that comes out of our bodies (yeah, shit) isn’t just chewed up food, It’s discarded flesh. What this means is that what we eat, for the most part, becomes us in one way or another. Food that we burn for energy is what allows for us to take action and thought, to survive. We are what we eat in a very literal sense.
So it’s no surprise to me that by returning to wholesome and substantial meals I begin to feel both more corporeal and clearheaded.