the dubious (mental) status of my vegetarianism

Last week, one of the teachers who comes to teachers' winter English camp brought me a rice sandwich for lunch. Sticky rice patties instead of bread, and what looked to be ham and cheese inside. I normally leave school right after teachers' class these days, so I thanked her profusely and told her that it looked delicious and that I would eat it at home.

And you know, I got home with full intentions of eating that goddamned sandwich. I wasn't excited about it or anything, but I figured it would save me preparing my own lunch. After all, ham is nothing my stomach hasn't seen a hundred times over these past months.

But I got the sandwich out, took a bite of it, and just couldn't do it. Granted, there was some caviar in it I hadn't previously noticed which had a bit of an off-putting fishy smell. But really, I've eaten a lot of things that grossed me out way more than a little bit of caviar ever could. Crab guts, for fuck's sake.

I couldn't go through with it. I was too disgusted. I threw the sandwich away. And it made me realize something about the aforementioned "rapid decline of my vegetarianism": I have trained myself to react unemotionally and without disgust when presented with meat - BUT ONLY IN THE PUBLIC EYE. Formerly, I hadn't ever tried to eat meat when someone wasn't watching me; I always cook vegetarian food for myself. But I'd assumed that if I tried to eat meat when alone, I would be able to do it. It seemed like the natural conclusion.

NOT SO. I have done something strange to my brain. I thought I had completely gotten over my original disgust towards meat - but no, the original disgust is still there. But somehow I have managed to hide it away so effectively [in public] that I thought it had ceased to exist.