Success. In a Sandwich.

Last night, I succeeded in making my gluten-free bread. There were a few minor mishaps (you’re probably supposed to actually add the yeast, you know, when the recipe says to add the yeast and not when you see it still on the counter and go ‘oh crap!’) and even a couple of phone calls to Mom (when it says flour the pans, which flour? I have 8 to choose from!). But when the house filled with the smell of warm, yeasty bread and I opened the oven to peek at those two golden loaves – I didn’t care about any of the trouble.

I had bread.

It helped me realize something. I now understand the crux of the gluten-free lifestyle. It isn’t the actual act of eating gluten-free (though that is an obvious part of it). It isn’t knowing your way around the specialty aisles and expensive food stores. It isn’t even knowing what is and isn’t gluten-free (Google is great for that).

It is actually far more simple than any of those far more obvious things. It’s just effort.

The great difficulty with the gluten-free lifestyle is that it isn’t easy. You can’t mindlessly pick whatever sounds tasty from any restaurant menu and then wolf it down (man do I miss that). You can’t just walk into any grocery store and grab the closest box of spaghetti and run home with it. You can’t even just pick any recipe you want out of any cookbook you want and follow the simple instructions.

Most of the recipes don’t have anything even close to simple instructions.

But if I can train myself to put forth the effort – to make gluten-free bread when I really want it, to learn the ins and outs of the gluten-free flours, then really, being gluten-free doesn’t seem like it will really be that bad. I like the bread I made. It’s slightly different, but not as much as I had expected. And when you put peanut butter and jelly on it, it isn’t different enough for me to care.

It’s just about rolling up my sleeves and making myself alternatives to the ‘glutenized’ versions of the foods I miss. It’s about putting in the effort.

I can see that I’m going to have to learn all sorts of things to make this lifestyle work for me. I’m going to have to learn what is and what is not gluten-free (and remember it when it matters). I’m going to have to learn that it really is okay to ask for a gluten-free menu or safe suggestions at a restaurant if I don’t know what I can order. I’m going to have to learn how to make bread without getting flour all over every surface in the kitchen and the cat (so says my husband).

But first and foremost, I’m going to have to learn how to motivate myself to put forth the effort it takes to do this right. To make steamy loaves of bread to slather with honey and stuff with yummy fillings and eat just to know that I can, indeed, eat bread.

What I've realized is, it's not about what I cannot have as part of a gluten-free lifestyle. It's about what I can DO.