Living without my crutch

I’ve been juicing for five days.

I’m starting to feel things that I normally don’t feel. Things that stay at bay because I have my food.

I’m doing a cleanse that has psyllium and I have to drink it five times a day, so I’m not hungry, but I miss eating. It soothes me and comforts me. I do it when I’m happy, I do it when I’m sad, it’s my go-to fix, my crutch.

I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what it is about eating that makes it my fix. Is it chewing, are there endorphins associated with chewing? My mind wanders to what tastes and sensations I miss the most, or that comfort me the most. My mouth is watering at the thought of a really well prepared steak with the savory juice pooling around my tongue before slucing down my throat. But the strangest thing is that I don’t even like steak. It’s never been one of my favorites, but it’s the only mental tastebud sensation that comes to mind when I think about food and soothing-dulling-pleasure (I was really expecting the pleasure button to be triggered by visions of my chocolate-chip-cookie-cream-cheese sandwiches or my chipotle-hot-wing-fries).

The steak is something that I may have once every couple of years. So it’s so strange that it represented such pleasure.

Anyway – today, after a long busy day, I was just sitting quietly and it became uncomfortable. Give me something to do, give my five things to do, then I won’t be in danger of getting too close to the real me (not the projected me). So I decided to write this post – Thank God, something to do rather than being alone with myself.

But in that brief moment before I knew I had to find something to do, for that brief moment that I sat all alone with myself, I realized that I was lonely.