How to Follow Your Heart

In the last while, I've been processing, dealing and gaining perspective. Breaking up certainly hasn't been easy. What's worse is that when I've gone through emotional upsets, I turn to food - it's what I write about. However this time, I turned away from it - completely. Almost two weeks and ten pounds lighter, food would just uneventfully swirl in my mouth. I didn't know what I wanted, or how I really felt about anything. All I know was that I have been walking through life in a fog and making an ass of myself in the process.


I mean who really gets a hug from the cashier at Winner's?
I'm having a really hard week (**eyes tearing up, lip quivering**) and now I need flats for work because my other ones busted this morning. I only have $35 to my name and these flats are $29.99 before taxes. Please tell me I have enough...


Who spills coffee on her crotch first thing in the morning promoting suspicious looks from strangers all day?
...I think that young woman pee'd her pants...


Who gets out of Sherbourne subway and can't seem to remember how to get home?
How could I possibly get lost in my own city?


What I do know is that this grief has been embarrassingly debilitating.

After speaking with Carrie, her words rang through my head, there's a lesson in this Melissa. I just couldn't recognize it, not at the time at least. Instead, I found myself torn between my heart which said one thing and my mind the other. It was not only painful, but downright frustrating. Then I remembered what I was told at the start of my Chinese Medical studies...the heart and mind are one. So if this is the case, how do I go about understanding and following this one entity when I can't even understand what's it's trying to say? How do you go about following your heart?

I realized I had to separate myself from this whole fiasco. I had to see not only my relationship for what it was but also see myself for who I am. Yes, we had some heated arguments in the last while, but we also went through more in six short months of being together than some couples go through in years. And when just when we were about to go to bed angry I'd want to face the issue and instead, he'd want to face the pillow. You see couples generally have these great epiphanies in the morning of, Oh God that was silly, why did we fight? I'm sorry. But with us, the epiphanies never came. I found myself reaching time again with being at the half way mark with no one to meet me there. Then recently when the rain decided to fall down in sheets on our relationship, he shut me out and I realized that he struggles to be open.

Then I look at myself and the anxiety attacks in the recent while and wishing I was more by this point in my life. This feeling became vaguely familiar. I realized that I had the exact same feeling with my ex-fiance. I hated being dependent on someone, especially someone I wasn't in love with. I ended up travelling back to the city over a year and a half ago forcing myself to get more and to gain independence and success. Then after countless dates, I met the Intellect and finally found stupid, ridiculous, fall-on-your-face love...which is hard to come by. And after consecutive sleep over visits to the Estrogen Den, it was natural that we'd just get our own place and live together. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my decision back then. As Mahalia said to me the other day, the heart has no concept of time...it falls when it does...breaks when it does and...repairs when it does. But with relationship troubles and unfulfilled hopes and desires on my part, I had to realize that the only person I had to really bank on at this point was myself.

We began to communicate every now and then which wasn't 100% weighted by anger. There have been no decisions made about us - quite the opposite. Several times wanting comfort without words, I asked the Intellect to come over. Through kisses drenched in tears, we'd reconnect as though we hadn't seen nor touched each other in years. While some would wonder why I'd ask him over, I'd have to say that love doesn't just turn off. And neither does your heart (which as you know is complicated). I realized we became cliché. Can't live and can't live without each other. I'm not saying we're getting back together or that he's moving back in. Instead we take it slow and deal with our own shit first - living separately. With that, there's no pressure to jump right back to where we were and pretend like everything's okay. That if we end up realizing that we just don't work, despite our efforts, at least I feel secure enough to know I'm in the process of creating a strong, personal foundation for Melissa to walk on again. I'm going to finish school in 24 days (but who's counting?), get my own apartment, maybe even a cat (I hear they make hypo-allergenic ones now) and yes, without him, I'm going to Italy.

Yes, this is beginning to sound like an Eat Pray Love story, but Sexy Food Therapy's journey has always been quite different. It will continue to document the story of a 30 something year old woman who talks about how she emotionally eats...the right way. Not to mention, this trip will give me a much needed break from five years of study. Six to seven days a week of work and study for the past five years has been down right exhausting.

Coming to this realization, I began to get my hunger back and the smell of food tickled my senses, rather than disturbing them. But even though I began to get a little excited again about food, I still didn't have a world of energy to cook up something grand. So one evening before going to bed, I decided to prep a quick breakfast for tomorrow that would take less than five minutes to make.


FOLLOW YOUR HEART BREAKFAST
1 cup steel cut oats
2 tsp Green & Fruity David's Tea
1 tbsp unpasteurized honey
Handful of berries & toasted pecans

Place all items except for berries and pecans in a bowl, and cover with water. Let sit overnight and drain out excess water. The oatmeal will be soft enough to eat.
Spoon into a bowl and top with berries and toasted pecans.

It seems strange to make your breakfast the night before - almost arduous. But really, it's the quickest breakfast and one of my tastiest breakfasts' - hands down. It might also seem strange to incorporate tea into a dish, but truthfully, it can be used just like any other spice. In this case, Green & Fruity tea offers the benefits of green rooibos which is an unoxidized version of red roobois. It has a higher level of antioxidants and also is rich in minerals which help to build the body...perfect for what I need right now. And with the added tropical flavours of papaya, apple, mango and peach, this caffeine free tea provides enough flavour for the perfect morning oatmeal. Not to mention, my little heart could use some loving and oatmeal does just that. It gladly enters in the heart meridian to nourish, soothe and calm.

So after finally getting down my first real breakfast after almost two weeks, I felt charged and for the first morning able to think clear. Go figure what regulating your blood sugar can do. Walking to class, I realized Carrie was right, there is a lesson in this. If the Intellect and I are meant to be, then it'll unfold as it should. More importantly, following your heart isn't about following him. Instead, it means following the personal desires and intentions that I came back to the city with a year and a half ago. It's about finally following me. I just have to have a little trust that love, success and independence will all work itself out the way it should. Listening and getting support from friends has made me realize just that. One of the most reassuring things I've heard to date and that I'll leave you with is from my friend Matty who said it best when he said, just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and soon enough, you'll be dancing again Mel.

And despite how hard this has been...I've never been one to shy away from the dance floor.