To Live Life

I appreciatively inhale the sensuous aromas of my simmering lunch. With sautéed onion as a base, I had added mushrooms, broccoli, sweet potato, frozen peas, kale, then dusted with garlic powder and black pepper. 

A rapturous moan purrs from my throat as I languorously chew a biteful of this simple yet divine composition of vegetation. 

"What are you eating?" she asks. I manage to crack an eyelid, interrupted from this delightful meal, and I dreamily inform her. 

"Vegetables?" she sniffs. "Rabbit food? Don't you ever live?" 

I blink in disbelief. Um, do I look miserable to her? 

"Well," she concedes, "it does smell pretty good . . ." 

When my folks were going out of town for a week, he asks, "So, are you going to have any wild parties?" 

"No," I reply happily. "I'm going to cook myself a little supper, watch The Big Bang Theory reruns, read a bit, then go to sleep by 9:30." 

"You have to get a life." 

"Uh, what exactly did your weekend look like?" 

"This isn't about me!" 

How to "live life"; I get speeches about it all the time. Unsolicited. I don't live life because I don't drink excessively, eat out regularly, or stay up until 3 a.m. 

I can't protest too much, since people think, well, that I'm protesting too much. But—

I don't think it is considered "living" to make poor eating choices while smug in the insistence that food brimming with health benefits tastes like grass. It doesn't. I am not deprived nor suffering in my pursuit of responsible menu-ness; I eat deliciously yet wholesomely (never mind cheaply) every day, and feel the better for it. 

I don't have to shlep around ten extra pounds in water weight, never mind whatever else in fat. I used to be heavier, so I know what it is like and I would prefer not to gain it back. Wheezing during the slightest exertion doesn't sound like fun to me.

As a self-diagnosed introvert, I do not befriend every lamppost. I have criteria for friendships, and quite frankly my tolerance has a limit. It is not my idea of a good time to hang out until the dead of night with people I have nothing in common with. I don't like it. I don't enjoy it. Telling me that it is the only way to "live" is a fallacy of logic.

There are billions of people roaming this planet, and guess what? Not everybody is the same. I was born with an inbred love of the middle path, devoid of extremes, as for every excess indulged there is the swinging pendulum of payback. 

Alcohol? Hangover. Deep-fried yummies? Cholesterol. Late-night partying? Exhaustion.

I live—yes, live—a life of stability and predictability. I love it. Don't cast aspersions on my life—my life. My choices are no less valid than yours. I shouldn't have to defend myself that, to me, crawling out of bed with a ringing headache due to lack of rest doesn't mean I "lived life" the night before. What about now? Is this whimpering on the way to work "living"?

Occasionally I will stray from my path and eat out with a good friend. I will blithely dance at a wedding of someone I feel close to until (gasp!) midnight. I know while I am doing it that there is a price to pay, but I am aware that in these unique and non-constant situations, it is worth it. But not all the time, every single moment of every day.
  

I reside with my parents, I don't go out past 8, I consume mostly fruits and vegetables, and I can't stand liquor. 

And I live life.