Journey

I have only told a few of my friends here that I am juice fasting. It's not something I want to really advertise. In the beginning it was because I really didn't have much faith in myself to be able to do it. Now--I don't know. I guess it's just kind of a personal journey of self mastery. Kind of how I imagine it to be when, in some cultures, a young man is sent off on a journey or a quest to find himself--to come back a man.

Here I am, on this journey. Really, it's about self discovery as well as self mastery.

I told my mom and my sisters that if I manage to do a juice fast for 60 days, it will be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Harder than waiting so long for Jared to come along (I was married at 25, people!) Harder than earning my master's degree. Harder than making it through two deployments. Harder, even, than burying my precious 3 month old son.

What will I be like at the end? Will I truly be able to overcome? My thoughts are that I will have spent so long on juice, that I will finally have a truly clean slate, and be able to begin rebuilding my relationship with food. Building it into what it should have been in the first place. My greatest wish for a long time was that self mastery over food came as naturally to me as keeping my house clean. Why can't it? Why can't I just eat food like a normal person, without it taking over my life?

I may always have to focus really hard on what I'm doing in order to not slip up. I may never have the luxury of having good eating habits just come naturally to me. But I truly do think that this journey will help at least make it possible for me to win a fight I have fought, and lost, so many times.