My Journal

The Heart Speaks

12-26-20
9:30 pm

I really don't have much energy to write tonight, but I know that journaling is good for me. I don't have anything extraordinary to write about, but here I am, writing.

My dad came to visit from out of state about a week ago to spend Christmas week with my mom, sister, and I. Overall, we've been having a good time, as good of a time as we can have in quarantine. We've been playing Overcooked and Link's Awakening on the Nintendo Switch, and we watched A Christmas Carol and Wall-E and Soul on Disney Plus. Man, Soul was really, really good. It really inspired me to live in the moment and enjoy the little things in life. My mom said it deserves an award.

But I've also been experiencing a bit more anxiety since my dad arrived. I've been away from him so long that I forgot how big his belly is. Just seeing it makes me anxious! He has metabolic syndrome, a condition characterized by a large belly and insulin resistance among other things. It's usually a precursor to diabetes, heart disease, and/or stroke, but it's reversible. The problem is that my dad is doing very little to reverse it, at least from what I've seen. People with metabolic syndrome need to significantly reduce their carbohydrate intake and, ideally, cut sugar out of their diet completely. I understand that it's difficult to avoid carbs, but my dad has eaten several cookies, a few slices of sweet potato pie, a couple of mini cans of 7-Up, and a slice of double chocolate cake within the five days that he's been here. It's like he doesn't care about his health as much as the rest of us do. And he's so adamant about ordering fast food because he's "on vacation," but we all know that he does the same when he's home. He just doesn't know how to prepare healthy home-cooked meals, and he doesn't seem motivated to learn. It's frustrating! I read a book about metabolic syndrome—and heart disease in general—in which the author narrated a story about a man who had metabolic syndrome and eventually had a heart attack. I don't want that to happen to my dad! It's so, so scary, and I wish my dad was just a little more worried. I'm going to sneak that book into his suitcase before he leaves. It's called The Heart Speaks by Mimi Guarneri if you're interested.