Ladies and Gentlemen, Day 5!

To begin with, at this present moment, I feel GREAT - vibrant, fit, *alive*. My body feels it is releasing and my whole energy feels a million times better than last night. I felt motivated to ride my bike, go to work, do a Journey process with the wonderful and amazing Val... but let's back up to this morning, when I did NOT feel great.

So I woke up and hit the 'snooze' button about 10 times... if you calculate a 9-minute 'snooze' time, you'll surely see that's just around 1.5 hours of 'snooze'-ing.

So I woke up, and I was reeeally considering giving up today. I've come really far, my body clearly wasn't happy with me yesterday, maybe this is not the cleanse for me. And I considered eating some food but then I thought, well, let's give it till midday. I'm ok for now.

So just as I'm about to head out the door, I feel this now-normal nausea in my body. I think, "I feel kinda nauseous," ... 2 minutes later, I realize, "I feel really nauseous... yup, I'm gonna throw up "...

so I do.

And I'm like, now what?

Clearly my tummy is angry at me at the present, and I can't even *consider* drinking any more maple syrup. So I ask my body, "Body, what do you need?" And body's like, "BREAD!" and I'm like, "MIND, what are youuu doing here? I didn't ask you here" and mind's all, "sooo-rryyyy" so I turn back to body.

"Body, what do you need?"
"Food."
"What Kiiind of food?"
"BREAD!"
"Miiiind, stop it! I can't eat bread, I'm cleansing the body of cooked food and toxins and what would this mean to my integrity of commitment?"
"Soooorryyyy. Just trying to help."

And body speaks up - quietly now - "How about a banana?"

How about a banana?

I think about it. A banana could be tough. A banana would mean breaking my vow of no solid food. Would that mean I'm breaking these plans?

But then, my body is asking for food, demanding it! Who am I to resist that?

So I choose to eat the banana. Because being nauseous is the pits, and I have a day to go about.

Anyway, the best choice I could've made. From then on, the day was GREAT. There were a couple moments of seeing people eat around me, and wishing that I could be ingesting a whole lotta cheese ... but it feels good to feel strong, too. So today was a day of feeling strong.

So the theme for HIGH FIVE day has been this: you don't have to move quickly and forcefully to be moving. You can be moving slowly, too.

And I love that because patterns in Meg's Life to Date have been around either been sprinting a 100 meter dash or sitting on a couch gorging on chips. Literally. So what if life were a marathon? What if life was a long-distance stretch consisting of sprints and jogs, and perhaps sometimes walks... but always movement?

I was riding my bike home tonight in a redonculous rainstorm. If you live in Vancouver, you know what that was... the drains were clogged with leaves so there were puddles everywhere, and so my feet were literally soaking by the time I arrive home. In fact, they were soaking 30 seconds after departure.

So the setup was pretty rough. Also, if you know 10th Avenue anywhere west of Alma, you'll know that there's a Great Big Mother-Fing Hill. (I like to call her GBMuthaFa). And most days, I feel empowered when I get up that thing ... it's always the very last leg of my trip and I always arrive panting and dripping with sweat when I get home.

However, tonight, I just knew I was too weak to take on the hill.

"Should I bus tonight?" I think to myself. But I consider how I've made that pact in September to bike everywhere that I can. And I knew I had the energy for a bike home tonight. So I sucked it up and left.

But I also knew that I did not have the energy to make it up GBMuthaFa. I tried 1/2 a block, to see if I was fooling myself... but I'm definitely weak and short of stamina. So I head back down the hill to the bus stop... only to see the bus pass me by, splashing water all over my face. Great. Now what?

But ya know... as I look at that bus passing me I think, wow. I really don't want to be on that thing right now. It's hot and non ventilated, it's really full, I'd have to pick my bike up to load it, I'd only go for 2 stops and spend $2.50 on bus fare.

So I think... I could walk!

What a novel idea! Walking, instead of going quicker and biking. Eating 1 banana, instead of pushing through pain. And in neither instances did I choose to 'give up' ... in fact, because I have energy now, I'm more committed than ever.

And that is what I'd like to leave you with. High Five for Day Five.

Love,
Meg