what’s sweeter than sugar?

it’s been a while! i’m in high school now. I’ve gone almost three and a half years without sugar… a teenager without one of those HUGE things that everyone associates with being a teenager. funny, isn’t it? i’ve almost gone on autopilot. people think it’s crazy that i walk around every day and wake up every morning without eating a lot of stuff so deeply rooted in being american, in being a kid, and in living what most of us consider a normal life.

but a cool thing that i’ve realized after all this time is that after the withdrawal, after getting used to a bit of initial social isolation, and after finding your new groove…

you start to realize that there are a lot of things out there that really are sweeter than sugar.

listening to a good song, taking a walk outside, spending time laughing with friends, a good night’s sleep.

those are a few things that i value wayyyyy more than a scoop of ice cream on a hot day, a bowl of cereal for breakfast, or a slice of pizza for lunch.

it’s not that i don’t miss those things. i just, after a while, started to see that the world is pretty awesome.

i’ve noticed that a lot of it is because of awesome people. people get up and turn to others and try to make them smile.

people write songs for others to enjoy, people clean up the park so that it’s nicer to walk in, people crack a joke so that their friends can laugh, people make sure to keep you company, people have their own talents and they show the world amazing things, people give you advice, people give a hug when someone needs it, people dance and sing, people open your eyes to new perspectives, people raise kids to put more good onto the planet, people heal the sick, people find answers to questions we didn’t know we were asking, people invite strangers into their homes, people walk miles for someone else’s benefit, people plant trees, people write books to make us wiser, people help their friends with their math homework, people ask the new kid to sit with them at lunch, people stand up for the underdog, people fight for things they’re passionate about, people genuinely care, people rise up in the face of adversity, people make their neighbor’s day, people give things away and they spread joy like wildfires and they make sacrifices for others they’ll never meet and they do countless good things that could fill up infinite blog posts written by fifteen-year-olds.

so there’s no point in being sad about not being able to eat the same food as everyone else. that’s one negative in world full of endless positives. that’s why i’m making a new blog, and a new instagram, dedicated to all the things i’m so, so glad exist, way more than i’m sad about not being able to eat sugar.

the diet i’m on is treatment for a chronic illness. but there’s a chronic illness that everyone else has, including myself, and it’s getting sucked into the black hole that is thinking about the bad.

it’s easy to think about the bad, but i like to challenge myself to think about the good. there are so many things sweeter than sugar, so every week i want to post about something i’m grateful for, something that sweetens the world much better than sugar ever could.

please follow the new blog, thesugarsubstitute.wordpress.com , and the new instagram, @sugarsubstitutes . there i will try to highlight the good that the world offers all of us!