finely chopped

I clip the the herbs off ... carefully, methodically, hoping I'm giving them their best chance at new growth after the shears leave the stem...

Bringing them into the house, I pull out a suitable knife and cutting board.

I pull each leave off. Stack them. And chop.

Watching the knife cut through, over and over, slowly, so slowly... carefully... making the sections as small as I can.

I measure. To be exact. The recipe calls for a specific amount. I make sure the amount is correct.

Precise.

I pull out the ginger. Remove the skin. And grate. Up and down the microplane.

I measure.

It needs to be exact.

Precise.

I repeat the process, which each ingredient.

Scrubbing each vegetable with a scrubber and water. Scrubbing well, to remove anything that shouldn't be on there.

Hoping I got it all.

I should be using vinegar...

I repeat the entire process, just to be sure.

And at the end of ... a lot of time ... I may have completed prep work. Or maybe a dressing or marinade... maybe just a few of the ingredients for a side dish.

Sometimes I start a meal two hours before it's time to eat.

To be sure.

I make something new for us to drink... an organic, caffeine-free tea... with lemon. Lemon is good. It helps. The tea does too. I checked. All the ingredients are beneficial.

I scrub the lemons, slice them... I put in high alkaline water... that's good, I think.

I hope it's good enough.

That it helps.

I put it all in a glass container... the water, the lemons, the tea bags. I put it out in the sun.

I don't rest. I can't.

There is more I can do. More I can prep. More I can read. More I can research.

More.

The more I do, the more I help...

More.

People compliment me and I am conflicted. The words make me feel good... the feeling is nice... but... there is no way I can ever do - enough. Compliments have no place here because ... I wasn't always this way ... Taking this much care ... being so precise.

I can't rest, because when I rest, my mind doesn't. I look back on life and there are many regrets... and it feels like I've done so much that could have contributed to this mess... we should have always been eating this way, living this way... I should have handled things better so that I caused less stress to the people who I love ...

I wonder if I caused this. And unless you've been "here" that would be hard to understand. You're just going to have to trust me on this one.

I should have been better.

Different.

What may appear one way to the world ... is something else inside this heart.

A photo of a beautiful strawberry on facebook, is this Mom trying to make sure that she knows what's going into her son's body. ( I've read to only buy organic strawberries ... so I make sure it's the epitome of organic )

How many strawberries has he eaten in his life? I know I didn't wash them all. I know they weren't all organic.

I breathe deeply.

I wash the strawberry.

I try to think rationally.

A photo of a pot of vegetable broth in all it's beauty, is this wife trying to ensure that everything that goes into her husband's body contributes to good health.

It's controlling what I can control.

Cleaning what I can clean.

Doing what I can do.

That's what all of this is.

xo
K.