So after my birthday last year, I made the decision to give up pork. The decision was based on seeing images of slabs of pork flesh oozing a very strange looking green substance. I looked into it and it turned out it was an abscess in the pork and the green stuff (for lack of a better word at the moment) was pus. Now even though I have my degree for surgical technology and I can deal with looking inside a living body, the idea of my food oozing pus disturbed me.
Another factor that played into my decision was a lot of my friends in the spiritual/conscious community. They urged me to quit eating pork to help clean up/detoxify and eventual begin to decalcify my pineal gland. Now my spiritual journey was changing very rapidly at this point. I had gone from a crystal toting self-professed Tamera-wiccan to just a spiritual person in general (I don't know how many times I have typed the word spurt instead of spirit). I went from my practice revolving around Greek and Norse deities to discovering deities from my own culture. But this is a topic for another day.
The last thing that helped me make my decision did not come until about a quarter of the way into 2014. I picked up a second job at an assisted living facility. I stay up all night (11p-7a) checking in on some of these elderly people, washing their clothes, helping them to the toilet, taking out their trash, even occasionally wiping their behind for them. And after a few weeks of doing this job, it hit me. I don't want to be like them when I hit my 70s or 80s or 90s. I don't want to have someone following me around all night. I don't want to have someone helping me take a shower, or push my wheelchair down the hall to and from every meal. I want to be able to function on my own. I've taken the time to sit down and talk to some of my favorite residents (I am trained on all three shifts so I have seen them at various times of the day), and it turns out that they were all heavy meat eaters in their earlier year and some of them still are. I hear stories of steak, and stews, and pork chops at Sunday dinner. Burgers and fries (nothing against fries, I love fries!), chicken fried steak, you get the idea. I don't want to live like these residents. I want to spend my golden years with the one that loves me through thick and thin and enriching the lives of my family.
So at this point, I've given up eating pork and beef. Pork was tricky because I like Chipotle. My grandparents have a tradition where they go to Chipotle every Wednesday. And while to the average person this may not be a big deal, Chipotle used to make their pinto beans with bacon (not that you could even taste the bacon). So for my first few weeks, I would be pork free except for Wednesdays. Then I switched to black beans, just to feel like I was actually sticking to my word. I honestly hate the taste (or lack thereof) of black beans. Black beans and mushrooms are just bland. Eventually Chipotle tried to become more vegetarian and vegan friendly so they stopped using bacon in their pinto beans and added Sofritos (tofu) to their menu. I jumped for joy about getting my pinto beans back. I even went ahead and decided I was going to give up my chicken burrito bowl and just get the Sofritos instead. Until that night as I felt my throat beginning to hurt, burn and generally tighten up like someone was choking me. Then I remembered one very important fact. I am allergic to soy. I honestly forgot that tofu and soy are the same thing.
Beef I gave up without even realizing it. My nana came home from the doctors one day and said she needed to cut back on her sugars and starches and her cholesterol and blood pressure were a bit too high. So I stopped cooking stew and pot roast without even really thinking about it. Almost as if overnight, they were no longer in our home. A month and a half passed and I did not even realize it. I got off of work one night and picked my nana up to go to Olive Garden (its my favorite restaurant in the world, I go every year for my birthday) for dinner. What I wanted to eat had chorizo in it (I googled it from my phone and found out it was a type of pork sausage), so I went to the next item on my list of things to try. I ordered steak medallion fettuccine Alfredo. I ate about half of it because I had filled up on breadsticks and salad. Within about 45 minutes I was in the bathroom with an upset stomach. I stayed in my room for the rest of the night. I went to work the next morning, came home and ate my leftovers for dinner, and the same thing happened. It didn't click with me until a two weeks later when I had a steak for dinner at Applebee's and my stomach was messed up within 20 minutes that it was the beef that was messing my stomach up.
So now I just eat poultry and seafood. I guess I fall into the category of pescatarian/pollotarian. And for now I'm okay with this. I do want to give up chicken and turkey and seafood (bye salmon) by the end of August. At least the school I go to has veggie and black bean burgers, so I can spend the $6 once or twice a week there or go home and make my version of sesame noodles. So for all my vegetarians and vegans out there, I want your tips and tricks and recipes (as long as they don't involve soy or mushrooms). I want to know what helped you make the choice, how long it took you, etc. And if you're in the same situation I am in, where you live with someone that does not want to become vegetarian (but you do all of the cooking) how do you feed yourself and keep them happy?
Until the next post,
Hotel Kings and Queens
Friday, May 23, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
How I Returned to Being Natural
So I'm going to start off with when I actually started getting relaxers. I want it to be known that it was not my choice to start relaxing my hair. My mother felt that at 14 about to start attending high school, I was too old to be wearing my hair straight back in corn rows. My first relaxer came as a surprise to me. I remember it burned so badly and I wanted to cry (I have a pretty high pain tolerance so it takes a lot for any sort of physical pain to make me want to cry). I remember my mom being so happy that my hair was straight. I remember waking up the next morning with parts of my hair plastered to my scalp because it had been oozing all night. I remember trying to chip out what looked like a combination of plasma and blood from my scalp so I could style my hair. This happened no matter what I did. If I scratched it happen, if I didn't scratch it happened, if they used regular relaxers it happened, if they used sensitive or mild relaxers it happened. My scalp was just not meant to handle relaxers.
My junior year in high school I chopped a lot of my hair and went Rihanna short. I kept it this way for my senior year as well. I went through my "wild" time at the end of high school and when I started college just a few short weeks later I was ready for something new.
I took his idea into consideration. I went home that night and started to look up natural hair. I googled relaxed hair, natural hair, how-to guides on going natural, downloaded a book about taking care of black hair. I told my mom about what he said and what I wanted to do. At this point my mom was very anti-natural hair and told me that I was letting him manipulate me and that I would never find a job as a surgical tech with nappy hair. March 9th 2012 was my last relaxer. It was my last semester of school and my mom wanted my hair to look nice for my graduation so I agreed to one final relaxer. Six weeks later I sat in the chair in front of my hairdresser and told her I didn't want another relaxer, I was going to go natural. At first she told me that I should "take a break from relaxers" since I wanted my hair to grow out. As the weeks went on, I think she became more and more frustrated with having to take care of my newly growing roots. She began flat ironing my hair on pretty high heat to straighten my roots out and she would constantly ask if I had decided to cut it all off or get another relaxer. I had originally planned to cut it all off but my mother intervened. Mid May came and I had an interview with a local hospital in my area. I was assured I would be given the job after I took my certification exam for the NBSTSA. I took my exam the first Friday of June and passed with flying colors. The first person I called was my teacher. The second person I called was my boyfriend. The last person I called was my ex. I wanted to tell my mom to her face and wanted to call my dad with her and tell him the good news.
I started my new job June 11th and did my first Big Chop June 16th. I had the job and that was what I had been waiting for in order to do the big chop. My dad was the most enthused about my hair cut, telling me that I looked beautiful and took pictures. My little brother rubbed my head and told me I was so soft now. My sister didn't really have any comments and my mother said she was glad I had finally cut it all off. When I saw my boyfriend a few days later, the first thing he told me is that my hair was too short. I was crushed. I had been so excited after cutting my hair and since it had been him that put the idea in my head I thought he would have been more supportive. He wasn't and from that point I realized I had gone natural for the wrong reasons and that I needed to figure out if this was what I really wanted before I decided to slap a relaxer back onto my head.
After a few months I decided that I liked being natural and this was how I was going to keep my hair fuzzy (fuzzy is what my brother started calling my hair when I did my first BC and I like it, so it stuck). Other things in my life started to change though. I lost the job that I worked so hard to get at the hospital and I was told I did not have enough experience for any of the other hospitals in my area. I can honestly say at the time I felt crushed, and I felt that I was not given any support from those I loved. I felt like I was being pushed to find myself another job. A few months later, I let my mother blow dry my hair. She wanted to see how long it had gotten. For someone who had been against my natural journey, she was really excited to see how my hair had grown in the few months I had been relaxer free. I washed my hair and used the heat protecting cream I had bought from Carol's Daughter. My mom put the blow dryer on high heat and went to town straightening my hair out. When the dryer finally stopped my hair was blown out, and it actually looked pretty long. The problem came two days later when my hair would not revert back to its original texture. I had heat damage. That Saturday I went o the barbershop with my dad and got it all cut off again.
This time my hair did not grow as quickly as it had before. Honestly it didn't look like it was growing at all. I had bad hand in hair syndrome at this point. I was constantly touching and pulling at my hair and this made for very slow growth. I applied for at a large hospital system in Virginia where my father was living. My entire family was about to move in June anyway so I felt like I would have a good chance at finding a job there with so many hospitals there. A few days later I was called for a phone interview. A few days after that I was emailed to schedule an in person interview. I would catch a ride up with my dad the next time he came to visit and I would fly back. My mother suggested I get braids for my interview to look more professional. I felt I would be lying to my potential future employers by interviewing with braids in my hair but really rocking at TWA underneath but I had never had braids with weave before so I gave it a shot.
I didn't get the job, but I did discover the ability braids to help my hair grow. The length of my hair seemed to after a month of extensions, biotin and black castor oil. I would get kinky twists and another set of braids later on, but honestly I like people seeing my for me and extra hair just hides that.
I was tempted to cut my hair into a tapered fro a few weeks ago, but something stopped me. Mainly because even though my hair does grow pretty quickly, I'm attached to the hair on the back and sides of my head (I think this has to do with the fact that my nana has pictures of me with only hair on the top of my head in the house). Also I think I'm having fun experimenting with different styles (I'm working on mastering flat twists at the moment and I think I need my hair for that). And finally my mother finally let the relaxers go and she's 100% natural. I think keeping my hair the length that it is and letting her see my hair grow inspires her to let her hair grow and keep up learning about her own hair. So this is the story of my natural hair journey up until this point. My two year natural anniversary is June 16th, 2014 and I'm looking forward to getting a blow out and a trim to see just how long my hair has gotten. But this time I will be letting a professional that specializes in natural hair do it, and not my mom.
So now I want to hear your stories. What made you return to natural? What makes you try things out for your hair? Do you color it? Is it loc'd, is it an afro? Do you protective style on a regular basis? What makes your hair your hair and does your hair have a name? Do you know your hair type (I certainly don't) Share your story with me and the other viewers.
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