Bananas.

I have a confession to make: I am not raw. Not 100% raw. Yet.

It has been a long and confusing two-year journey of running in circles only to end up right where I began - convinced that Raw is real and right for me. It just makes sense, and the smallest taste of vibrant health is enough to keep me wanting more. The human body is an amazing thing. It adapts in less than favorable conditions and it thrives when properly cared for. I can feel the changes and the energy immediately after drinking a green juice. I can feel the cleanliness of my body after eating simple mono-meals of fresh fruit. I start to crave big (very big) kale salads. Your body knows what it needs and it's a shame that we don't listen to it.

Yesterday, I set out on eating bananas, bananas, and more bananas for a week. It was actually rather easy... Until 7PM. I started having intense cravings and my body started shaking. I felt antsy. My hands and toes were tingling. I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Everything just felt so wrong. I tossed and turned restless in bed. I screamed. I cried.

I had never felt that intensely before. It was such an odd sensation. It felt like a cocaine addict's withdrawal. It made me realize how severely addicted we are to cooked food and its toxins: sugar, salt, and a plethora of impossible-to-pronounce laboratory concoctions.

I woke up this morning with a "hangover". Head pounding, ears ringing, body aching.
I am 3 lbs lighter. But there has got to be another way than eating bananas. I've been perusing websites, forums, etc. in search of an answer, but I keep running back to 811rv. And I'm more confused than ever.

If Everyone Cared.

So, I was dully enduring my daily cardio this evening when Nickelback's "If Everyone Cared" video played on the screen. Somehow, not by accident but by some sense of fate, I was immediately drawn. By the end of the video, I was near tears.

Those tears, those emotions reminded me of unique and rare moments of epiphany. Perhaps it was young high school naivety or hormones gone abunk, but I used to have this "fuck the world" attitude. At the same time, I balanced that pessimism with ideals of how the world should be or could be - an attainable Utopia.

Nickelback's video drew me back to those emotions, ideas, epiphanies that once haunted me. I remember them now and wonder what happened. "What happened?" (A question thrown around so easily.) And, for the first time in a long while, I felt inspired to do something. There's so much more, there's so much more to life.

I have this aching, this hunger to do something. To reach out. To act.
But what? I feel stuck. The world is at my fingertips and yet I still feel stuck. My entire life, people (friends, professors, bosses, strangers) have said that I have such a bright future ahead of me. That I'll be successful. But, I question, what defines success? I don't want the highest paying, stress inducing job. I don't want to be stuck in an office.

I suppose I want what all of humanity craves: Freedom.

The strangest thing of all is that these sudden inspirations have also been sparked by my mother. We had a nice, albeit quick, chat this evening and she revealed her plans for her life in the future. I cannot divulge too much information here, but let's just say that it is brave and life-changing. I wish I could do the same, but I don't think I can honestly say that I will or have enough strength to.

P.s. Do you think dancing is selfish? I sometimes can't help but feel like all this is so superficial and trivial. Why do we do this and for whom do we serve? With that said, I believe in God and I believe that God created beauty. That beauty is seen in everything, and we are more fulfilled as souls by celebrating it.