Hour 90 into 14 day fast...

Heya fasters,

So past the 90th hour. I feel nice. I think the worst of the hunger is over.

I donate monthly to my local food bank. It’s an auto debit out of my credit card every month.

Yesterday I made an extra donation. It’s surreal that I get to have the luxury of choosing not to eat. It’s a ridiculous privilege that most of us have, to fast willingly…

I was abandoned by my birth parents when I was three, and spent the next three years in an orphanage. I remember always being hungry. The nuns were brutal in their punishments. The rations of food were tiny.

I eventually was adopted into Canada. I was so ravenous. I couldn’t believe the food they made available to me. No matter how much I ate, I wanted more. And so quickly grew from malnourished little girl to a very plump one. It’s been a lifelong battle of being overweight and trying to eat rationally and become a healthy weight.

What I’m trying to share is that this IS a privelege, to get to do this at all. So much pain and hunger in this world. It makes me sometimes shameful at how I forget that sometimes, and become so insular to my own petty wants.

In the privileged nations, thinness to us means prosperity now. In third world countries, their skeletal bodies only display the lack they have.

I’ve only ever been underweight when I was an orphan. My gluttony when I came to North America was insatiable. Most of my life I’ve spent overweight, and sometimes briefly obese.

Today, I will be extra grateful. I fast for mostly vain reasons. It’s nothing to glorify. I’ve spent decades taking too much. And even though I am conscious of the reasons why, it doesn’t absolve me of personal responsibility.

Anyhoo, that’s all I wanted to share. My gratitude for every choice I have. My gratitude for having choices at all.

Stay safe, everyone ❤️.