Guilt

When someone in the family dies, it always makes you think about your life and sometimes we tend to zoom back to certain parts that we can never seem to really put behind us. Every time a family member dies, I think back to my mother, and for some reason, I always think about all the things I did that disappointed her or hurt her feelings. I always carry this guilt with me, and I can never seem to ever really let it go. Why is that? What is the evolutionary reason for this kind of haunting guilt?

One thing I don't know if I can ever let go was how my sisters and I were going off on a nature retreat, and my mother called me back as I was about to get into the car, and after her urgent calling, I went back and said, WHAT? in a very exacerbated way, and she handed me an umbrella, which I snatched out of her hands. The look on her face after that action made me feel instantly guilty for my actions, and that one thing I had done I had never ever let go. It was her loving consideration that I had thrown back in her face, and the look of utter shock and disappointment in my behavior on her face that I will never forget. If I could go back in time, that would be on the top of the list of things I would do over.

There are plenty more where that came from, but while that may seem to be the most innocuous thing I have done, it is the one that comes back to me, and quite often. Why is that? Why is that, even with all the worse things I have done (the screaming fights, the passive aggressive not coming home from college even when I had time, etc, etc), this one thing bothers me the most?

Dietary Restrictions

I am not talking about the kind where someone has a peanut allergy, I'm talking about the kind where someone refuses to eat something because it'll make them fat, or it'll make the animals sad. I'm not going to say that all dietary restrictions are ridiculous. I am going to leave religious dietary restrictions alone. If your God told you not to eat pig, who am I do say your God is wrong? I mean, I follow a strict diet twice a month as a Buddhist myself. What I do not get are people who start dropping various things from their diet because it's not kind to animals, or it's a little too fatty, or it causes you to gain weight. Oh, and just to put it out there - I think people who are vegans are ridiculous.

Let's just get to the core of this. Once again I am annoyed by my friend who is a boy whom we will call my boyfriend. When I met him he was vegetarian, for some sort of Buddhist reasons. I was OK with that, and I adjusted by making dinners Buddhist vegetarian. It's better to eat more vegetables anyway. Eventually, he caved in and added seafood to the diet. After watching some show about how most chickens in America are raised, he started to buy cage free eggs, and contemplating only eating cage free eggs. That was until I told him about how cage free did not necessarily mean humane, and that cage free has its own sins.

After watching Food Inc., my boyfriend has been trying to buy more and more organic products. I can almost justify people who buy only from farmer's markets and organic foods, except that many of these people are living beyond their means to get such food. I cannot stand people who tell me they don't have enough money to pay for their rent and electricity and heating, but have the money to buy gourmet organic foods. So I am sorry, since my boyfriend is living off the negative money of educational loans, I cannot condone him buying highly priced organics.

Of course, I think what has ticked me off enough to make me write this, is my boyfriend's new dietary restriction - carbohydrates. He has insisted on 'laying off the carbs' which is now frustrating me to no end. I am freakin Chinese American - which means I'm cheap, I eat pork, and I eat rice and noodles. So while I humor him with the occasional organic apple from the farmer's market, I'm really starting to feel pained at eating mostly pricey seafood. Anyone who eats pork and chicken knows those are the cheapest ways to get your protein in, not seafood, beans or tofu (oddly, you'd think tofu would be cheaper, but it's not!). So now that he has asked me to cut down on the carbs part of the meals I make, I am at a loss of what to do.

People should just be glad to have their meal and thank the land that gave it to them. Stop being so picky!!!