Meals, do not delay

CEBU, Philippines - We all know skipping meals is bad.  Well, delaying a meal is bad, too.  If you are expected to be in the workplace by 8 or 7:30 in the morning, you have to wake up early so you can prepare your breakfast in case nobody prepares it for you.  If you are living in a dormitory or room for rent, well maybe you know already where to buy your usual breakfast—the eatery nearby.  If you are living with your parents, you are not exempted from this advisory.  Even if all you have to do as soon as you wake up is go to the bathroom for a quick shower, change, eat, and disappear.  Sometimes we sleep late and we wake up late; when this happens, we rush almost everything in the morning, unmindful that we need to take our meals before going to work.  In the jeepney or taxi or car, we feel our stomachs churning.  Sometimes it would trigger old hyperacidity to make new holes in our intestines.  But because we are very bright people, we try to find ways to forget the hunger by putting on our headsets, or maybe listen to that girl saying she’s on fire or that boy who says he’s got a girl with a heart of stone. 

Then the usual series of unfortunate events begin.  You check your watch to find out you’re late already.  The driver is driving turtle-like.  You’re caught in traffic.  You curse the driver, of course only in your mind. You run as fast as you can to the now sophisticated Bundy clock and discover that your android phone is not in your pocket.  You look back for the taxi or jeepney to see only dust floating in mid-air.  You turn around and see your boss telling you you’ve got some paper works or repairs or errands to do immediately.  You phone home by landline and find out that they said your very expensive phone isn’t there.  What a way to start a day!  Empty stomach.  Lost phone.  With the volume of paper work, number of repairs, or length of errands to do, you don’t get to eat until around 9 or 10 o’clock.  That’s delay number one.

Lunch time comes.  You are caught in the middle of some very important work that must be done before 1 o’clock in the afternoon.  Because you want to impress your boss or you are looking forward to a possible promotion, you continue working on it even if you can already feel your stomach grinding.  You go famished again.  That’s delay number two.

Delay number three happens while inside the jeepney or your car.  Because you are saving on something, you have not eaten anything before your long ride home.  It’s already 7 o’clock and you have just covered half the distance from your work to your house.  Stomach is making some weird noise again.  People seem to be too many when in fact there’s but a few.  Few meters more, you start to dislike the lights, all kinds of lights.  Another few meters, you dislike the sound of horns.  Then you start to feel agitated and you do not know why.  Then you start to feel painful lightning in your head.  Then you lose your balance and you don’t know why.

Continue delaying your meals and I assure you— everything’s going to change drastically inside your mind.  You begin to think so negatively of things.  Even if you are not sick you will insist that you are sick.  All your lab results are fine but you still believe something is really wrong with you because you kind of lose your balance from time to time.  You feel like vomiting but you can’t vomit anything.  You feel like you’re falling even when there’s no abyss.  When you read something, you have to read it twice or thrice to understand.  Worse, you don’t want to go to work anymore because you’re afraid you might get hit by a speeding car or get smashed by a falling tree.  And in the middle of the night, you suddenly wake up from a bad dream.  Then you’ll tell whoever is sleeping beside you that you felt like somebody has strangled you.   You ask for water because you can’t seem to go back to sleep anymore.  At some point of the day, you feel very tired and you don’t know why.  So again, you begin to think you have something like cancer. 

You are at your wit’s end to find the cure and nobody can give it to you.  It’s because the only one who can cure you is you.  If you start to feel what I have told you, go back to eating your meals at the right time— 6 in the morning, 12 at noon, 6 or 7 in the evening.  And you can have crackers in between.  You don’t have to Google this.  Follow my simple advice and you will be okay.  I mean you don’t want to forget your name, do you? 

Eat well.  Remember, always at the right time.  Always. (FREEMAN)