All the Different You's

It's so interesting to observe the 'you' you are now compared to you a few years ago.

Growing up, spicy food was an integral part of life. The more fiery, the better. Our family had a pretty high threshold for hot food compared to our relatives who were often left surprised at the amount of heat in our meals. I remember our family as being right up there with, or perhaps just a couple notches below the spiciest-food lovers in our region who enjoyed Andhra cuisine  - a cuisine well known for its ability to set your mouth aflame. Back then, I could barely imagine eating more than one meal in a day that was bland in taste. Now, I cannot eat more than a few morsels of food that are as hot as the food I grew up eating.

Today, what I would have considered mildly-spiced food, set the insides of my stomach on fire. This stomach-in-flames feeling is not entirely new to me. I've experienced it when I ate food that exceeded the already high levels of heat I was used to in my growing-up years. However, I had a far higher tolerance for that burn too. I could go about my daily chores and be functional despite the discomfort. 

Now, all I could think of was a way for someone to use a fire extinguisher in my stomach to put out the blaze immediately! My mind knew that I got through a lot worse than the current situation; that I have it in me to get through this one too. But, something in me didn't want to do it anymore.

I attribute this change to a couple of things. First, as I've gotten older, I've found I've begun having a lower tolerance for s*** in life, in general. (My writing too is undergoing change - I now incorporate profanity when earlier there was none!). Second, life is all about perception. Maybe in that cocooned world of my earlier life, my limited life experiences placed the spice level I was used to at the top of the spicy-food hierarchy. Now, having travelled about and experienced more - maybe the perception of having grown up eating really hot foods was just that, a perception. Maybe I always only ate medium-spiced food all the while thinking that my palette was used to and could brave highly-spiced food.

Well, my changing palette makes me love the fact that I'm having it all. I experienced one end of the food spectrum and I now I get to experience the other.