Some Days You Just Have To Eat Crap!

This blog has been a long time in the pipeline, for this phrase came to light months ago when talking to a friend and we joked together that I should write a piece called just that. It is a phrase that we use when we have had a day when we have felt the need to eat too many carbs, or something sugary or fatty – often to fulfill a craving of the body or to lift a mood of the mind. When one of us have felt the often related pangs of guilt afterwards and communicated this to the other, we now have come to that understanding to reassure each other with, “It’s okay, some days you just have to eat crap!”

Since the blog has been going and people have begun to read it regularly and are aware that I am writing it, there are a few times when individuals have said that I should write about a specific subject, perhaps that we have been discussing together. Other times, in mid-conversation something funny might arise and together we’ve even joked- be careful or it will end up in her blog!

I suppose that’s what writers do. They join in the everyday, just as everyone else does, but they catch hold of a part of it and examine it microscopically through their notes on a page. Like a child might grasp a dandelion clock as it floats by on the wind, examining its beauty before blowing the fluffy seeds further on their journey to fulfill the wishes they’ve just made - a writer grasps a seemingly insignificant aspect of the everyday, finds its beauty and let’s that then take flight, with the flow of their pen and the imagination of the reader to join up the dots provided. I’ve always been fascinated by the scenes constructed in my mind when reading a book. Granted, the writer has evoked a setting and a character from the choices they have presented but the joy of realisation is within each reader’s imagination. How many times have you been disappointed by a film or dramatisation of a cherished book because the protagonist does not match up to how you had cast it all in your head?

Okay, so far you’re thinking ‘What has this got to do with eating anything?’ I do like a tangent, and when one presents itself I enjoy seeing where the journey will take me - today it appears to be from crap to dandelions! In writing this I have discovered that the dandelion is a symbol of the ability to rise above life’s challenges. It is linked to wish fulfillment, long lasting happiness and youthful joy. (According to the website www.flowermeaning.com ) Well, we could all do with some of those things in our life, couldn’t we? On the days when such goals feel a pole apart from where we stand, when we need the tenacity of a dandelion to find our crack in the concrete to push onwards and upwards, when we need some crumbs of comfort to rise above the challenges we have been given - that’s when we need to eat crap.

There, I made the link!

I’m guessing that you all know the days that I mean? The best of us, the ones committed to exercise routines and beneficial food swaps, the smoothie swigging, gym attending, spinach eating best of us - all have these days, don’t we? I have done well over the last year to adopt some of the healthy habits that we all know to be good for the body and mind. Since starting this New Year - on my career break - I’ve actively worked to keep some of these aspects in my daily routine. Good food choices, exercise, aspirational thinking - all of those things. But I have to admit that without the structure of the daily working grind- it is a battle to do so at times. Yesterday, I truly did have a day when you just have to eat crap. I had the wrong stuff, then some more of it, far too much of it and then, just before bedtime, a little bit more of it. A crap-fest extraordinaire!

Today, I am parking that to one side. I have retired to my writing best, the sun is shining through the window and I am writing. There are no dandelions in sight right now, but I did see some snowdrops when I walked the dog last week. A blanket of tenacious white bells offering the hope of Spring, warmth and an invitation to run in the woods and leave life’s crap behind.

Does anyone want to join me?