I Lost It Over Some Miso Soup

I try to be pretty diligent when it comes to eating out. I always ask about ingredients and double and triple check allergen/ingredient info online (when I can) and yet sometimes I still get burned.

Case and point- miso soup. Seems harmless enough, right? Miso paste is just fermented soybeans and it is something I keep on hand for cooking. It is salty and yummy. In the soup (made from miso paste) you will find little pieces of tofu, seaweed and scallions. Seems harmless enough right? But yet I always ask because the broth, the broth is where I seem to always get burned. I should know better right? This same thing happened last year at a pho restaurant that swore to me their ginger broth was just veggie stock and ginger but in reality (I found out on the third or fourth visit) it was chicken stock. FYI restaurants- stop calling things vegetarian if they are made with chicken broth.  UGH!

But I digress…yesterday I ordered some miso soup. It was probably the third time I had ordered it at this restaurant (where I was told no animal in broth just miso paste) only to be informed by my vegan-ish friend that they were probably wrong. Most miso soup has bonito in it. Which is fish. Which bothers me because I bet she was right and I bet the woman (or even the kitchen staff) didn’t know it had fish in it. I am a vegan and I didn’t know that.  I mean just yesterday I had to tell a waiter that eel sauce was actually made from eel bones after he tried to tell me otherwise. 

The reality is I try really hard to not eat animals but sometimes I do on accident and there is nothing I can do but learn from it and move on.  But that’s not really the point of this post.

The point is what happened after I ate the miso soup.

 

I basically lost it.

Somehow I went from ‘whoops, I probably just ate some fish’ to bawling my eyes out because I don’t have any (local) friends, to how much I feel like an outcast (yes, being a vegan makes me feel like the oddball in pretty much every situation), to how much it sucks that my closest friends are 1000 miles away, to how much my life would be easier if I could just find someone like me, to how alone I felt. And I just cried and cried and cried. Sobbed really. Those big ugly tears. With snot all over my face. Just uttering nonsense.  It was pretty ;)

And it felt good.

For the last few weeks I have felt off. I have been all over the place, emotionally, and I didn’t really know what was going on. And when I would tell E that I didn’t feel great I wasn’t able to tell him why.  I didn’t know if it was work stuff, school stuff, life stuff, some combo or what.

But yesterday, as I was just letting the tears come, I realized something. I realized that I had missed my outlet for that cathartic release at fitbloggin and I think I really needed it.

I like to say the fitbloggin people are my people, they just get me. But that’s not really true. I mean yes, they get me but most people ‘get me’. I am not that complex. Anyone I talk to can understand my past and how I choose to live my life.

Fitbloggin isn't 'my people' they are me. Not saying everyone there is just like me but in a sense they kind of are. Everyone there attends because some area of their life is driven around health and wellness. And then yes, there is a smaller group of people who really are just like me- lost a whole lot of weight and are living in maintenance mode. Or are currently trying to lose a whole lot of weight, because I’ve been there too, they are me too. Oh, and there are always a bunch of vegans thrown in the mix too which is also awesome because I don’t know a single vegan here in Pensacola. Or, for that matter, a single person locally who struggled with obesity and lives in the mindset of actively trying to prevent obesity from taking over again.

And it sucks because these people that do, my blogging friends and support team, I only get to see once a year.

And knowing that I still have 11.5 months before I get to see them again hurts.

And it makes me feel alone.

E is great though, he takes on both roles (boyfriend and friend) well. And I commend him for knowing when to let me cry it out and when to try and talk it out.

And last night I cried it out.

And it helped.

But I think there is more crying that needs to be done. More work to get to the root of the problem.

Last night I also thought a lot about the times in the past when I felt alone. When I let my weight isolate me from others or when I would move somewhere new and struggle with making friends and I thought how at least back then I had two of the best friends in the world, my doggies, to help me through it. I miss them so. I know some of my tears last night were for them. I still miss them every day. In my opinion, dogs really are man’s best friend. I know mine were.

I don’t really know what else to say. I am emotionally beat this morning. I am in desperate need of that perspective shift where instead of being sad over not having friends nearby I should be thankful for the amazing friends I do have that make me feel like distance is never an issue in our relationship. I shouldn’t grieve over losing my dogs (who are happily living with a family in Alabama) I should be thankful for having many, many years of happy memories with them. And instead of crying over being alone I should realize that I am never alone when I have my love by my side.

I know all of this. I know how lucky I am to have such amazing friends and family and the world’s best boyfriend. I know how fortunate I have been to be able to have two loving doggies, to travel to see the friends I miss, to have people in my life (both near and far) that genuinely care.  And 95% of the time I feel exactly that- happy and grateful.

But I am human. And those other five percent….well, it happens. 

And sometimes you just need to cry it out, write about it, and move on.

Love and hugs,

Dacia

xoxoxoxox