Facing Fears

I've been hitting some heavy stuff here in my little corner of the web lately. Took the weekend off and two of my lovely friends picked up the slack for me. I'm back and wanted to share something that happened today and lighten things up a bit.

"But Jo, the title of this blog post doesn't seem very light to me. I'm confused."

Welcome to my world - where confusion runs rampant and minds change in the blink of an eye. *blink*

Anyhoo...facing fears doesn't always have to be this deep and cathartic thing. Sometimes it can be something simple, like what I did today.


"What did you do today Jo?"

How kind of you to ask! I did something that I've been putting off for years. I've been in the grip of this horrible fear since I was seventeen years old and decided it was time to take my life back.

In high school, I went on this trip. I can't remember what it was for or anything but one part in particular has never left my memory. We were gone all day so we ate lunch away from our school, which was exciting because do you REMEMBER school lunches? *shudder* Anyway, we got to have lunch at this 'food-court-like' place and I was in the mood for chicken. I went to this place that had chicken and rice. It smelled good so I got some. Turns out it was chock full of curry, as Indian cuisine tends to be and I about choked to death. I'd never had Indian food before and apparently I hate curry.

I was unable to finish my meal and had used the last of my money so I spent the rest of the day hungry and fairly ill-tempered. Eating is one of my favorite activities and not being able to it was very annoying. Plus being hungry makes me crabby.

For the last *ahem* twenty years or so, I have avoided Indian food and anything containing curry like the plague. That spicy, burning-in-your-nose taste and sensation...EWWWW.

Today I ended all of that. There is this restaurant near my work that people have been raving about for a long time. I decided that the woman who can do the things that I have done in the past week? She can certainly give this curry-filled food another shot. I asked the very kind lady who was serving to pick out some things and explained that I was not a big curry fan. (To her credit she did not laugh out loud right in my face.) She put a big selection of things into my carry-out box and explained what each thing was so that I knew what I was eating. She wished me luck and sent me on my way.

I came back to my desk and immediately dove in. (Make a note, trying new foods works best when you are starving...makes you a bit more open-minded.) I ate the following items:

chicken tikka masala

dal makhani

lemon rice

saag paneer

mixed vegetable curry

vada

(and this wonderful flat-bread thingy)

Attribution

Verdict? I loved it. The chicken tikka masala was my favorite and the vada was ...just ok but I'd be willing to have each of those things again. The mixed vegetable curry was a bit too 'curry-ish' for me but I'd still eat it. I loved the lemon rice and the dal makhani was delicious too. I can't wait to try some traditional Indian desserts. I'm hearing good things about those too.

I learned a valuable lesson. Avoiding things just means you spend way too much time not having something you could have been enjoying all along. I'm learning that more and more day by day.

I'm still not eating raw onions (YUCK) any time soon though. I have my limits and who wants to eat something they hate and have smelly breath too? NO THANKS.