it’s an ‘I’d like to eat red Jello’ kinda week

I’m trying to hang in there but this week has actually been quite awful. There isn’t anything that jumps out at me. Things just feel hard and the deep sadness lingers.

A good friend of mine sent me a message saying that she hoped things were okay and I replied that there’ve been a few ‘I’d like to eat red Jello‘ kinda days but otherwise I’m hanging in there.

So where does the red Jello come in? Well, a few years ago now I ate some red candy that unbeknownst to me contained a red dye called carmine. For those of you who don’t know it, carmine is sometimes made from the powdered scales of the cochineal beetle. While there is no significant hazard to the general population, I am not so lucky as to be part of that group. It started as one hive and led to full body head-to-toe hives, swollen eyes a bump on the head from sudden low blood pressure and swelling in my throat. It was terrifying.

From that day forward I have eliminated, to the best of my ability, almost all food colouring from my diet. Especially red! I sometimes won’t even eat naturally red foods if I feel too anxious.

Yes, I realize it’s overkill but I believe dyes in general are not the best for you. So let’s just say I eat a lot of white things like only vanilla ice cream, yogurt and pudding. I also have a really hard time eating food I have not cooked myself unless I am absolutely positive it does not have anything I don’t recognize as safe.

So even though it’s been a rough week, when she asked how I was, to try not to worry her too much, I said I’d like to eat red Jello…even though it doesn’t contain carmine and most likely wouldn’t kill me.

Yeah, so that’s the type of week it’s been so far.

Tomorrow I am supposed to see T. Like, face-to-face see him. We’ve decided that the risk is low enough in our community–we’ve only had 16 cases of which 13 have resolved–and both of us have basically had minimal contact with other people in the community. It was T’s decision, not mine, so I’m trying to convince myself that must mean he really wants to and isn’t just doing it because I’m a disaster. Honestly, I don’t think T like virtual therapy all that much either.

I think tomorrow when he asks how I’ve been I’ll just tell him that it’s been a red Jello kinda week.