Vitamin D

My latest rheumatologist recently drew some blood out of my body to reveal that my Calcium and Vitamin D levels are extremely low. She commended me for my overall health and fitness, but suggested that I start taking more supplements.

"People with bodies like you don't belong in climates like this," she mused as she wrote me a script for another year-long prescription for a drug that attempts to harness my fickle immune system.

The truth is that I didn't need the test results of a blood draw to know the obvious when my body has a tendency to make me exceptionally aware of its profound incompatibility with freezing temperatures and lack of sun. In the winter months, my body is a barometer for the weather. Long before I am capable of opening my eyes in the morning, I will know that the sun plans to stay behind the clouds by the heaviness in my limbs and the dense feeling of weight in my muscles that whimsically appears and disappears with weather.

However, in the summer months that I recently spent in New England, the same held true. Afternoon rainstorms and humidity would build up just as I seemed to wilt and wither. Never before had I ever experienced such intense migraines and fatigue as I did before the rains came or the intense snowstorms were dealt. Never. I pushed myself for afternoon runs along the lake, but never felt the way I do when I'm closer to sea level and nearer to the equator.

Per the advice of my rheumatologist, I am now taking supplements to combat bone degeneration and what not. But better still was the sound of relief in her voice when I told her that I will be moving me, myself and my prickly immune system back to the Mediterranean for the next six months.

I leave in exactly one week.

And yes, there are days such as this one when I am too exhausted to think and my body has no particular reason to be too achy to move, when all I can do is watch the snow fall outside and think about...

..ridiculously fresh salads, big hats, monosaturated fats, walking everywhere, eating clean, day trips to the Dead Sea, haggling for vegetables in other languages, having an actual reason to wear 45 SPF sunscreen, living in the moment while building a future, always drinking water, and finding ways to explore the possibility of never coming back.

Sorry to ditch, but ya'll can totally keep the snow.

Namaste