Shopping healthy ingredients for the first time in my life.
“Cabbage is 1500won.” I muttered to myself as I looked closely at the price tag. I stared at it quite a long time as if I had never seen something like this before. If someone saw me standing in front of these cabbages with my arms folded, they might have thought I was about to fight with them. However that was exactly what I was planning to do, fight with cabbages. I will eat these no matter what they taste like. No one would have noticed that I was standing in front of two roads diverging in a wood in that moment. I was determined to take the one less traveled by, hoping that it will make it all the difference as Robert Frost said.
Everything happened just a month ago. Before that my life was peaceful. And I have never thought of myself in the emergency room with blood all over my clothes. This kind of urgent and bloody moment was fit to only the main characters in the dramas and the movies to my knowledge. And I had never expected the things like this would happen in my life. I vomited out too much blood. I was carried to the hospital before I could realize. Doctors moved fast and pressed down my head and shoulders to stuff a horrible long and thick yellow hose into my stomach through my nose. I could feel every movement the hose was making in my body. I could not breathe with the pain. I wished with all my strength that the hose would slip into my body as fast as it could so that I would not feel pain anymore but my body seemed to try its best to block the hose from coming inside. I swung my arms and legs in pain and that only made the doctors press me harder. I wished I would just faint.
I was hospitalized for days and the time passed like years and I was diagnosed as eosinophilia gastritis. My stomach was beyond complete recovery. And the day I left the hospital, I had to face myself with the fact that I must struggle with this chronic disease forever. My mother encouraged me to change my life style which was a best cure for my disease. She told me to change my eating habit first of all and pointed out that I don’t eat veggies and like fatty food too much. I knew that she was nagging me for my good. However, the first thing that came to my mind was that, who cares even if I die. I grabbed some of my favorite potato chips as soon as I got home. And my mother started to nag me again. “I cannot give up eating this. I would rather eat this and die. I don’t want to live too long.” I said with a nonchalant shrug. Then I saw my mother’s troubled face, full of anxiety and grief. It was that moment that I noticed about my mom’s broken heart. I didn’t care too much about me, but my mother did. She was even more distressed than I. She loved me so much that watching me in pain was agonizing.
I soon realized that there was something wrong with my mind, even sicker than my physical body. I prayed to God that He should heal my soul and mind. And He made me remember a Bible script; “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” God told me that He loved me so much to give His only Son as a sacrifice and that I am worth being loved. And I recalled my parents and my friends who cared about me so much. With this, I decided to change my mind and love my own self for I am worth being loved. And the first thing I did was to plan a healthy diet and to make a shopping list. I jotted down cabbages, beans and eggplants on top of the list. These are the best ingradients for the stomach. I disliked all three but I was willing to cook these and eat now.
I headed to the market near my house with the mixture of emotions. As I was standing in front of the cabbages I was really determined. I will take care of my body. Various types of crackers, chips and chocolates lured me as I pulled the cart. And I might have not overcome this temptation if it was not the love that changed my mind. Making a healthy life was a matter of loving my own self.
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