No Sugar November

I’m pudgy.  It’s no secret.  My BMI says I should weigh about 140 pounds.  That’s nice…let’s be that.  But dropping weight is not easy when you have a mild addiction to Sixlets and Mexican Coke.

I started a journey.  I’ve decided to chronicle my “No Sugar November”, mostly for me but if anyone pops across this blog and finds humor in it, that’s cool too.  I guess the main reason to jot down the insanity of this month of no sugar is so that if I die, forensics doesn’t have to do too much research.

Days One and Two: Let me just say this: I’m a complete and total ass for bragging about being able to do this.  I’m not a strong person.  I have zip for will power.  Remember that scene in Top Gun when the CDR says “Your ego’s writing checks your body can’t cash”?  Yeah, that would be me and my big, fat, non-ducklipped mouth.

I attempted one of those outdoor camps (they swear they’re not like crossfit, but they are so like crossfit without the gym).  How hard can it be to work out for 60 minutes?  That’s only like 3,600 seconds and I have taken NAPS longer than 60 minutes…I have stamina.  I’m not going to lie: I felt every, single one of those godforsaken seconds.  I pulled muscles that were foreign to me, I didn’t know there were 50+ different kinds of ab workouts but we’re going to do them all, oh HOORAY!

Starting a no sugar diet after 30 years of addiction and attempting to crossfit your way to health on the same day is a recipe for disaster.  I figured I’d be able to see an ab that evening, but I wasn’t prepared for the aftermath.

I couldn’t pee.  Oh, the kidneys and bladder function, yes.  But the ability to drop trow and release the pee wasn’t there.  I couldn’t squat to sit on the damn toilet.  I could barely use my fingers to unbuckle my pants.  I stood there, in the stall, dancing back and forth on my toes because I know for a FACT I’m about to wet myself.  I would cry, but I have no liquid in any other location of my body except in my bladder.

It gets worse.  I begin to hallucinate.  Not the fun “I’m on drugs” hallucinate, but the “giant bugs are swarming my face in my sleep!!” hallucinate.  Ever had that?  Trust me, you don’t want it.  I also have found myself dumbstruck at times.  Like looking down at my hand while I was driving I swore that I’d put my ring on inside out.  Let that sink it.  I was certain that I put on a RING INSIDE OUT.

I can’t sleep.  I can’t stay awake.  And now I’m creeping up on Day Three.  I can’t remember my children’s names….and then I realized I don’t have children….

Finding What Matters

I found the world only a few short years ago.  I completely understand that it is in sharp juxtaposition to the amount of time I have found myself on this planet, but I must clarify: I didn’t wake up to the world until I was about 29 years old.  Up until that age, I realize now, that I suffered from a severe ailment known as religion.

The day started off more normal than usual.  Raising two children on my own, no child support coming in, $10 an hour to feed a family of three, too easy, right?  Breakfast was portioned out, quarters were given for milk money, my kidlets hop on the bus while I start my commute to work, completely normal I tell you.  Up until then, I’d been a praying mom, a devout Christian that made sure to give my thanks to the floating man in the sky watching over me.  My life wasn’t changing too much; struggle was every day, not enough food, not enough money, not enough groceries, not enough gas….you get the idea.  Certainly, one fine day, this god would help me, hear me, alleviate the pain and struggle, put more food into my children’s bellies, make my gas last just a few days longer.  But it never came.

That’s when the pain struck.  I was alone here.  Boy did that hurt my heart.  Felt like the pain you experience when you’re a child and you first realize there is no Santa, no Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy.  (To be completely honest, I never really believed in any of them, and the Tooth Fairy freaking scared the hell out of me).  I realized I have to do this by myself; that there won’t be anyone handing me more money, more groceries, more of anything.  If I wanted it, I had to get it.  And I couldn’t just sit and ask a silent and useless god to assist me.

Another truth: I don’t hate this god, or any other god.  It wasn’t an incident that made me turn my back to a deity or a church.  It was waking up.  It was the dawning of the knowledge that if I need something, I have to make it happen.  If I want my children to eat more, I have to make more money.  How sad to rely on someone I’ve never seen or felt or heard to bring me that kind of peace of mind.  I have the ability to do that on my own.  And just like all the other thousands of gods that have come before the one most of you all praise now, he/she will eventually fade into the distance and be another legend or myth.

I cheer for that day.  I cheer for the day that we stop speaking to the sky and start speaking to each other.  I want to hear people say to one another that they will help, and that it doesn’t matter to them what color they are, or who they sleep with, that we will all get through this together.

I cheer for the day that religion goes to the wayside.  We fight about enough.  Stop raising your voices in useless prayer and start holding out your hand to others in need.

You’ve Left Me Behind

It’s not been a day passed
That I’ve not pictured your face
Every crinkle of your skin
Sweet pierce of your laugh
The choppy torrent in your eyes

I see you wherever I go
Absent minded, drift place to place
How your hand would touch
So softly my cheek, and away
From me tortured true love flies

It’s not the same without you
I remember how sweet you taste
All is lost, you’re no longer here
My own demise churns my haste

Never again shall I touch or see
The love you have come to be
Life’s not to be lived without you for me

Living For Why

The atrocities that humans are capable of towards fellow humans is not more nakedly described than in the book “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl.   Read it please, everyone one of you.   Online, go by the bookstore, or borrow my copy*. And regardless of your religious beliefs, color of your skin, or the way you part your hair, the messages are simple: treat your fellow man with love and kindness, bring them happiness (no matter how small) and you will find the meaning of YOUR life in the eyes of those you have helped.

We all know that nobody is born racist or filled with hate. Then the opposite is true. Nobody is born with love in his or her heart. If they were never taught to truly love, then how would they know?   And I’m not talking about the butterflies in the stomach, star struck, puppy love kind of stuff (that’s all biological). I’m talking about the empathy, the pain and the peace, the need to help, and the will to lift up others kind of love.

You know what photo moved me to tears? The line of black men that stood in front of police officers during the Baltimore riots.  That is love. Love of your fellow man, a love that protects. Why did they choose to do that? Their personal decision, their “why” is their meaning in life. I don’t have to know it, only they do. All I have to do is stand back and appreciate it, with tears stinging my eyes and my human heart swelling with pride because of those men.

The lives we lost in Charleston were a devastating blow to the human race. Every time another human is murdered by his fellow man, our bonds of love fray more and more. Every time we look at a person and hate them because of the color of their skin, what they choose to believe, or whom they choose to love, we lose our meaning. We don’t get much time with our fellow humans; please stop wasting it with hatred.

* If you borrow my copy and don’t return it, I will force you to watch all the Twilight movies on repeat until you give it back (*shudder*)