I wish I were already there. On the other side of having lost the weight and conquered the monster. I want to have closed the gap between liking-the-way-I-feel-when-I-exercise and liking-to-exercise, and to have closed the distance between the now and the up ahead.

I think about the six pounds I've lost since the beginning of 2012 and I think about the fact that I'm really still at the beginning of all this. The six pounds and one month are decidedly the underdog facing the rest of my life — a long, long time I hope.

I think it's going to take about six months to change the ways that I think about diet and exercise. Six months of getting stronger, slimming down, and eating by a healthful standard should give me more than the shred of victory I have today to face forever with a more respectable measure of confidence. So I don't really want to be here; I'd much rather be there. I look at "there" so far off and feel discouraged, and then I think I've got to stop all this thinking!

There's something about being in the now, and being okay with that, that I've got to find. Anne Lamott wrote, "I am trying to learn to stay in the now — not the last now, not the next now; this now."

Early last Saturday, Mike and I walked the old path through our neighborhood to the elementary school and voted in the South Carolina presidential primary. We used to walk it every morning when our daughters shouldered colorful book bags that made little girls look even smaller. We'd kiss them goodbye at the glass back door of the school and hold hands on the walk home. I remembered my many complaints that the morning misty air frizzed my hair, undoing my fifteen minute blow dry and flat ironing sessions. I smiled and asked Mike, "Why did it seem so ordinary back then? How come I didn't know that each one of those mornings was amazing? It's so very obvious now."

So I will stand today, with 24 more hours of our fast and who knows how many days until forever, and see right now for what it is:  obviously amazing.

~ ~ ~
Daniel Fast Reflections From the Beginning:
Day 1 :: Food
Day 2 :: Slow
Day 3 :: Foreign
Day 4 :: Hunger
Day 5 :: Life
Day 6 :: Free
Day 7 :: Praise
Day 8 :: Respond
Day 9 : Interruption
Day 10 :: Prayer
Day 11 :: Answer
Day 19 :: Grace