"most people have no idea how good their body is designed to feel."

nic and i are coming to the end of a month without refined sugar or alcohol.

i also made a promise to myself to eat (for the most part (my tiny realistic caveat for myself)) things that occur in nature. i didn't want to omit fruit or oil or nut butter or other things i deem delicious and necessary for life, but i simply wanted to eat things that exist in the actual world. preferably single ingredient things, but at the very least food with ingredients i recognized as food items. no maladextrose number 259.

[image 1: trip one of 87129 to the grocery store this month, 

plus a visual of my life savings, before ingestion]

several people, who knew i was embarking on such a sadly daunting (for me) adventure, have repeatedly asked me throughout the month a. if i am still on the wagon and then, subsequent to my yes answer, b. if i feel nonstop incredibly amazing.

i definitely wish i felt nonstop incredibly amazing. that i could aver that removing those two very toxic elements from my life had dramatically altered both my body and well-being. and, while i'm positive they have from a health standpoint, i don't feel or look so amazingly different.

now that i've said that, i realize it's basically not true. i have, for the first time since i can remember (it has surely been more than ten years) slept through a handful of nights, without waking up to pee, readjust my pillows, blow my nose, fish around for ear plugs, sleep eat or do any of the other weird, neurotic things i've been known to do at night. i do feel like i have more energy. i have seen changes in my body. i feel stronger. and i find a strange amount of comfort and power in saying no to things that i would have previously succumbed to.

please reference: me, eating three donuts one morning immediately upon arrival at school after eating breakfast at home.

so yes, i do feel different. but i don't feel like some pinnacle of vibrancy and health.

but the good news is, i'm trying and that, in itself, feels best. i am trying to take care of myself instead of asserting how impossible it is to take care of myself. 

i am struggling to not obsess over the number on the scale, because if i'm running every day, not eating too much and eating healthy foods, going to the gym or workout classes regularly, and generally winning at life then WHY AM I NOT A MODEL?

yes. i'm working on letting that go.

i'm working on taking care of myself for the sake of taking care of myself and living a happy, healthy life. i've been waking up early to meditate, drinking tea, stretching, slowing down, eating with deliberateness and awareness and doing all the crunchy, hippie things that once upon a time made me nauseous to even hear.

which leads me to the second item i've been asked, which is if i plan on drinking and eating sugar once the month is over.

i am certainly not planning on staying up til 12 am, february 1st, so i can guzzle bourbon and crush some cake. i will likely drink a beer on superbowl sunday and, more likely than not, it will not make me feel amazing. or maybe it will and i will wonder why i ever for a moment stopped ingesting the pure bliss that is craft beer. 

i will always love beer. i will always love sugar.

because they taste amazing.

i will definitely eat a donut again and i will definitely drink a beer again.

but what i'm ever so sloooowly approaching is the realization that things that are momentarily gratifying are not always worth it. which i, of course, knew, but am just now beginning to grasp in reality rather than just in theory.

i won't be able to abstain for a month, achieve a perfect body and mind (which i am soooooooooooooooooooooo far from anyway), and then revert to old ways.

the last two days, i went to a training for school. we were learning about a program that uses physical exercises to activate children's vestibular sense. aka the inner ear. this woman started out as a reading specialist and realized children were struggling, because their eyes and ears were not working to process information in a way that even made it possible to read. their eyes weren't focusing; their auditory input was all wrong; they couldn't even begin to process information efficiently enough to make sense of anything on a page.

she basically said we're not making our kids work hard enough. we cart them around and strap them into 8000% security items that don't allow their bodies to move an inch and then plop them in front of tvs and ipads. they're doing plenty of looking around, but their bodies aren't connecting what they see with motor skills and everything's ending up a disorganized, sloppy mess. 

so she's created a series of physical exercises to challenge their bodies, stimulate and build strength in the inner ear, and in turn unleash an amazing ability to process information that leads to better academic, social, and behavioral performance.

this is all semi-extraneous information, which i'm mostly sharing because it was interesting. but i'm thinking about it, because many people in the training asked, how long do they have to do it until they're better? 

as in, when can they stop?

as in, how long do we have to exercise until we're fixed?

which was ludicrous to me. because i realize it's not sustainable to have a kid doing a jelly roll on the floor, then cross lateral knee touches, then a bean bag toss, then a balance beam every day of their life so they can continue to excel at reading, but the idea, the action of keeping your body in motion to maintain physical and mental health-- that doesn't have an expiration. you can't do it and then you're fixed.

you have to work and work and work and work and work and work and work and then you die. 

you never get to stop working.

you have to constantly take care of yourself.

this is what's amazing to me. this is what i think i am just finally arriving at, at age 30, end of january, almost six months into living in kentucky.

i have to take care of myself. i am the ONLY person that is going to take care of me.

people can love the shit out of me. they can support me and hug me and encourage me and stand beside me and write me beautiful letters and tell me beautiful things and give me everything i ever wanted, but at the end of the day, it's my mouth chewing up the food, and my legs choosing to sit down or keep climbing.

i cannot lament, complain, rationalize, excuse, or love my way into health or out of the responsibility for it.

i can sneak snacks when no one's looking and it doesn't make me healthy. i can tag myself at 24 hour fitness seven days a week and it doesn't make me healthy. i can begrudge people, who get what i think i deserved, envy people, who look how i'd like to look, condemn people, who live in ways that i deem improper, complain about all the things that are keeping me from living the kind of life i might even begin to find satisfying, but it will fix absolutely fucking nothing.

my life is a choice. i am the only one, who makes the choices. and i have got to choose for it to be good.

i have got to wake up early to sit and think about what i'm grateful for for fifteen minutes. i've got to pause for a cup of tea for a minute instead of rushing to look at my phone. i've got to pack a lunch the night before, so i don't cram cheez-its and diet coke in my mouth when i'm crumbling from hunger at school. i've got to spend money on real food. i've got to run or walk outside on my lunch instead of sitting in the break room, griping about what's wrong. i've got to go to the gym, when i just want to put on sweatpants and watch tv. i've got to keep pushing. i've got to say thank you for what i am and have and can become. i've got to try and try and try and work and work and work and then i'll die and it will have been the best life.

i am the only person, who can take care of me. that is true for my body and my heart and my soul's health.

i think i actually just realized that today, which is why i'm writing all these words.

i am entirely responsible for myself.

I AM ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR MYSELF.

it took me thirty and a half years to realize it.

shit.

here goes nothing.