Juicing? Why not!

So, last week I watched a documentary called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" that was about an Australian guy named Joe Cross who was overweight and had a condition called chronic urticaria. He decided to go on a 60 day juicing fast and record his journey. Needless to say, it was quite inspirational. So much so, that I decided to give it a go for 10 days.

I definitely have some reservations about it. I don't think that I have gone more that 24 hours without eating solid food and now I'm about to sign on for 10 days. My brain is giving me a ton of reasons why this is the worst decision I could make. But, I'm doing it anyway. And there is no better time than the present. It's summer time, I'm not in rotations any more. I have time to prepare the juices. I just need to close my eyes and take the dive.

I am going to use this time to jump start that whole transformation that I talked about in my last blog. I know that it is not going to be the easiest thing, but I should focus more on how things are going to be in the end instead of how things will feel in the beginning.

I am thinking about blogging about how things are going. Hopefully it just won't be me talking about food. I will probably just need a place to talk out all the thoughts in my head while I try this out. Hmm, that probably means there is going to be some food talk.

I'm adding in other things too, because it just feels right to do so. I have never fasted just for health reasons. Usually whenever I have been on a fast, it is for spiritual reasons. I think focusing on God and my Christian walk will give my mind something to occupied with, so I am not thinking about eating. This will give me the opportunity to dig into some things that I have been putting off for a while.

So, everything starts tomorrow. I picked up all my groceries tonight, have my juice recipes taped on my cabinet above juicer, and am cleaning all dishes so I don't even see remnants of food. So, here it goes, guys. Wish me luck.

Daily Write - Experimental Reaction

I guess I was supposed to be angry. My nostrils were supposed to flare and I was to succumb to a deluge of rage. I guess was supposed to scream so loud that my veins would show and my skin would change colors. That would be a normal reaction. That would be the expected reaction. How else would a person handle the fact that their life had only served as someone else's play thing and everything previous was scrubbed away?

However, I found myself doing none of those things. There was no reaction, actually. There was no insurmountable rise of emotion within me whatsoever. No questions being posed in my mind as I am given the reply of what my life had been like before the day I woke up. It was like staring at the life of a stranger whose only similarity was that they had my face. And then being told the stranger was not one at all. It was in fact me. Me before I was chosen.

I have no memory of this life I had been told I once lived. A lasting effect of the experiments they explain. To prevent me for having a reason to leave the Facility and go searching. It is probably the same reason I cannot make myself feel anything about this situation.

I felt more like a ghost, haunting a dream, drifting through the surrealism that was pictures of me with a family. Mother, father, even a puppy. Very odd, seeing how I'm not sure I like dogs. From what I could tell, I was normal once. Normal and happy.

I don't wonder where they are now, the people in these pictures. Or how long it has been since I last laid eyes on them. They are strangers, just like the person who shares my face. I have no more connection to them than anyone else I would pass in the street. I have no longing or wish to have any of those memories back. What good would they serve me?

No, there is no anger. Everything that happened to me before I was awoken was taken and I can never get it back. I have been one man's experiment, quite a successful experiment at that. I could not become the person in the pictures again if I wanted. I suppose the only thing I feel now is broken. Broken and unattached.

The Quest Begins

Feels like I make this decision all the time. I sit down and take an inventory of my life and decide what it is that needs to be tweaked, rearranged or just plain gotten rid of. But there are some things that I am afraid to say out loud for fear that I will fail. And the fact that I said it will come back and haunt me. So, I don't say them and if I fail, then no one would be the wiser.

But that is probably the wrong approach to a challenge, planning for your failure instead of imagining success. Always thinking "Well, you tried this once and you are still in the same spot you were in before. Not quite sure why you think it is going to be different this time around." But, despite the doubts, I am going to make my decision to do this anyway. And perhaps writing about it will help it stick this time around.

I'm not doing anything novel or something that thousands have not done before. I am aiming for a happier, healthier, improved me. There, I said it. I am looking for a head to toe, inside and out, improvement of everything. I know it sounds like a pretty large order (and that's because it is) but I'm up for the challenge. And here is why.

A year from now I will be ending a chapter in my life that has been pretty long and will be starting something new, in a new place. And I want to start this chapter in my life being happy and healthy and at my best. I am a bit tired of wishing that something miraculous would happen and I would suddenly be healthier. It is time to put in the work and head towards that goal.

So I suppose if I should just be frank about everything. Right now, I am just not happy with anything. I'm overweight, diabetic, pre-hypertension, always feel tired, still have break outs even though I left puberty a long time ago, hair has broken off because of stress and me generally not taking care of it, and this is just the physical part of things.

Recently I have had to deal with depression, anxiety, being overly introverted and the general feeling of being locked away from the world. And I am only doing it myself because I have this fear of...something. Rejection, not fitting in? Who knows. But I'm tired of it. I am quite tired of all of it. I am ready for something different.

So here is the start I suppose. My quest return to a happy and healthy me that I left behind some years ago. And just keep pushing until I get there.

A Surprising evaluation

I am probably going to sound like a broken record, seeing how I think I have already written about how easy it is to believe the worst about things. But I am going to write about it again. Because...well because I can. I had a sit down for a midterm evaluation. I was dreading this like no one's business. I was trying to come up with all the reasons why I was good enough. I already had my list ready to go in order to defend myself and why my entire class was better than me.

So the meeting starts and I am handed my folder. Wonderful, my evals. I never look at these things. Ignorance is bliss. But I open up the folder because I have no choice. I was absolutely bowled over when I saw all the high marks. What? I had impressed these people? How? Why? Me? The shock only continued when the evaluation continued and my only criticism was that I wasn't assertive enough. I was genuinely liked and told that I had an interesting personality but I didn't let people see enough of it.

Well that was not what I was expecting at all. Why do I always think that people are going to reject me? Why am I always scared that I am not going to measure up to everyone else? Why do I always think that I'm less? No one else seems to be thinking this, so why do I assume that they do? While I have no answers for any of these questions, it is still nice to be reminded that I'm not at the bottom of the barrel and I don't have to always feel like people think I'm less than.

Daily Write - To hear those words

She wasn't sure what woke her up. There was no sounds, no lights. She simply opened her eyes and was staring at the dark ceiling above her. It was still dark outside of her window, everyone lulled into comfortable slumbers that would only end with the coming of the morning. She sat up and let the covers fall onto her waist. Slowly the fog around her previously sleeping brain started to lift as she become more awake and alert. She sat there quietly, doing nothing but looking at the darkness.

"I guess I should quit pretending that you don't know that I'm here."

The voice came from the shadows in the far corner of the room and was soon followed by a tall, thin figure showing himself in the grey light of the night. She couldn't see the face, but she didn't need to. She already knew who it was. And was not surprised that he was there.

"How did you get here?" she asked, staring at the man standing in front of her.

"That's not the actual question you want to ask," the man answered, taking several steps forward, "Ask me what you really want to know."

She pulled the covers back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. He was right. She didn't care how he had gotten into her room. So she changed her question.

"Why did you leave? Father could have protected you. You didn't have to run."

"Did it ever cross your mind that I ran because I did exactly what they said I did. Perhaps I am guilty and I didn't want to be locked away from the rest of my life or worse, lose my head."

"Then why come back here? Why risk coming into the Capitol? You of all people should know with excruciating detail what will happen if they find you here."

There was silence, nothing moving, nothing spoke. She knew that he had the words that he wanted to say. He always did. So why wasn't he saying them.

"All these years...you and Father..."

Then the silence returned again. He didn't need to say anything else. She knew the question. She got up from her bed and walked over to the shadows. She could see the contours of face. Time had chiseled that juvenile countenance he had left with and replaced it with a more manly visage. However, it was still the same familiar face. The same familiar eyes.

"You are our blood, Brother. You share our pride and honor. We never believed. I never believed."

"Those words," he replied, "That is why I came back. I just wanted to hear someone say those words. I wanted to hear you say those words."

Words I couldn't say

I could never quite understand why it is so difficult to say your dreams out loud. Not the goals that are able speak to anyone who asks you. Those are not the ones I am talking about. And not the ones that you are keeping in the shadows, waiting to reveal when the time is right. No, I am talking about the dreams that sit at the center of your being, the very core of your heart that you are afraid to even breathe aloud to yourself. The dream that burns within and yet something holds you back from giving voice to it.

Perhaps it is just me. I was asked recently what my dreams were. I started going down the list, but then I hit one. This one. And I couldn't speak it out loud. What was it that I was afraid of? Would people think that I was pretentious to want such a thing. Was so I afraid of failure I didn't even want to acknowledge that my dream even existed in my head? Whatever the reason was, I kept my mouth shut and have yet to open it to anyone. So now I am just thinking, are there any others like me out there.

What makes a dream so daunting that you don't want to speak it? Why would anyone not want to acknowledge something they want the most in their life? I haven't figured it out yet and maybe I never will. The only think I can possibly think of doing is just to continue chasing after what I want in life, no matter if I say it out loud or not.

Work to be happy

I have always wondered why it is so hard to let go of negative things? Why do we keep things that haunt us so close to us? Why can't we just forget them? Let them stay in the past where they belong? What purpose do we have of reliving those moments over and over again?

This is something that I seem to have trouble with even now. Granted, it is not as bad as it once was. There were days when dredging up certain parts of my past would cause me to tearfully doubt my future. To curl up on my couch and question everything that I was and wonder what the point to continuing on even was. I could never understand why I constantly tortured myself by reliving all of my upsets and short comings over and over again. And I continued to do it, making myself feel worthless and low. Now when those same dark times come, they don't really last all that long. I remind myself that I made it through and I can't go back and change anything from my past anyway. I can only move forward and live life. No need to wallow in things that can't be undone.

But why is that so hard? Why does it take so long to shrug off all that past hurt and upset and move along with life? It took me a while and it took effort. It wasn't something that just happened when I woke up one morning. It was an active process for me to be okay. And it is process that is still continuing. Something that I have to make conscientious effort to make sure never to fall into again. I feel like it shouldn't take so much to forget what hurts and remember what brings joy. And yet it does.

I can't understand why I did such things to myself. All I know is that I never want to relive such a thing as that ever again. And if it takes effort on my part, then so be it.