What do we do when we miss days?

I've been away these past few days and coming back to the project is even harder than before. Yesterday, in Philadelphia, I felt even better about the project. After a lot of thought and conversation, the more I think about detoxifying my body, the less it seems to be about health. In fact, it seems really unhealthy to me right about now. Its like I like the toxins; or rather, it is as if the toxins are a necessary part of my existence. I view life as a struggle, health as the end of a war. Why don't I think that my part in detoxification is my own victory? Perhaps what i think I lose is the feeling of being in a noble battle. It seems likely that if i get healthier I'll have to start a new war called maintenance. If that's the case, I'd rather stick to the war I know.

But regarding that problem, I am prone to think that I am reared to fight life's many battles. Staying alive is only the barest essential component. What kind of "health" does detoxification promise? I've already acknowledged that the legacy of my own community would laugh at the project; don't I have more important things to tend to? And isn't it only the privileged with nothing to do that worry about purifying a perfectly able body?

I'm getting weaker the closer I come to the onset date. I can feel my resolve weakening and the project going on the shelf with the many other projects I've started and never seemed to finish. This time, though, this project is more than just a cop out. I feel fear. I can't say what I'm afraid of. I'm not hungry, but the thought of losing the options...in a suburb that already has limited options...is already making me back away from the project. I went to the supermarket to buy the containers and lemons, but I left some ingredients behind. I'm afraid of the vegetables. I see them rotting away; evidence of my failure. I left them in my grocery cart. Oranges, I thought, would be an easy reach, but I saw myself peeling in desperation and crumbling under the unsatisfying experience. I thought, "what if I want salty food" and I looked to the spinach, carrots and other vegetables. I ran.

I managed to get the lemons home. I figured they would at least last beyond the project and I could always make juice. Then I thought, "well, by the time I throw them out the project will be forgotten and they'll just be rotten food."

I know it looks like I am too negative about the project and I probably should just jump ship now. I can just hear my sister saying, "if that's how you're going to be about it, then you're not ready." Ready for what? When do you become "ready?" when you've had a death scare? Or maybe when your doctor gives you that look (you know the one when he looks at you like you've been playing in a pool of pig's shit and you're a big mess), then says, "your...is too..." Ahhh, those life affirming words translated, "you're going to die sooner than you think." That's suppose to be the big philosophical breakthrough. This project won't work too well if I'm doing it to scrape up a few extra years on my mortality.

Culturally speaking, I think I am trained to fight something, even when its nothing at all. So, it seems to me that my current struggle isn't negative, just another fight. Can I do this project without fighting anything? I don't think so, and I'm afraid I'll get tired. I hope I can still write when it happens; I want to know the nature of my exhaustion and how much of it is a combination of my psychology and this detoxification process. Its no wonder they say you'll feel lighter when its over; I feel like a ton just thinking about everything the project demands that I consider...cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure, obesity, etc. Or, worse yet, "better this and that." Let's go for I won't die if I don't do it, and I won't be better at anything if I do. So why do it at all? Let's pretend for one minute that a healthier physical body makes an ounce of difference in the way a person really lives. And let's try not to confuse, as it seems many of the detox writers do, that detoxing and incorporating "healthier" eating habits will naturally lead to a desire to purify everything else in your life. What's wrong with this picture, for me, is that it just seems a little too simplistic. But then some of the best things in life are rather simple. Open mind, right? Let's try it again.