feast fasting

Last Friday, I was talking to a friend who is fasting for Ramadan. In support of her, I told her I'd fast with her for a day and then planned to have a celebratory dinner with her at sunset. She was thrilled and quickly added under her breath, "Yeah, you probably couldn't do it for more than a day anyway." I was like, "Excuse me? Umm... yes, I can." She looked at me skeptically, and a mischievous smiled curved across her face. "I bet you can't last a week," she challenged. I thought about it for a second and then said, "A week? Pffft. That's nothing. What do you want to bet on?" We decided that the loser has to cook a dinner for the winner - winner's choice of menu.

Along with fasting, I'm supposed to refrain from other things as well.
1.) Cursing - A little difficult.
2.) Sexual activity - Easy.
3.) Sexual thoughts - Hmm..
4.) Insults - This one is going to be tough.
5.) Holding onto grudges, bad thoughts, bad memories - Uh oh.

In the act of fasting, one is supposed to cleanse one's mind along with the body. You are to reach a Zen-like phase and rise as a "newborn" person at the end of the month. In addition, the last ten minutes before sundown is supposed to be a spiritual experience. You are to have your food and drinks in front of you so that you can reflect on how fortunate you are. You should be grateful for the simple things you have in life, like food, and you are to think about the millions of people in the world who don't have the choice of fasting or who don't have the luxury of a meal in front of them at sunset. This should make you mentally happier and at ease to realize and appreciate all the good things you possess in your life.

It's Day 2. I'm doing okay. Mind over body. I do feel a bit fatigued by 5:30pm, but it's not too terrible. On a brighter note, I do feel a big change in my mentality. I feel happier, and I feel refreshed despite the lack of energy. My boss is making fun of me saying it's probably just the lightheaded side effect of hypoglycemia. Har har har. No one thinks I can do it, but I truly believe I can. I feel like it's such a small feat to accomplish, and compared to the chaos I've been going through, this will be a breeze. I think.

I've had a chance to reflect on myself. It's ironic how much clarity you receive in your head while your body is being malnutritioned (or rather "detoxified"). I thought about my life and the way I've come to view certain aspects of it. For instance, I've been unhappy with a lot of things lately, but the point is, I've been unhappy, period. I wondered why this is so. I tried to analyze the exact moment when my ideologies changed and when I became such a pessimist. Okay, maybe I know what triggered it, but what happened that made it stick with me? A lot of bad things have happened to me in the past, so why couldn't I overcome this obstacle? I know, I know. It's something everyone's been telling me for forever now. "It's all in the mind." I just need to learn how to control it. Well, you should know by now that my mind has a mind of its own! It's crazy! I'm crazy! My mind and I are crazy together! But during these last couple days, I feel like my mind and I have come to an agreement. We don't want to be miserable anymore. So, I think we're going to try to work together and come up with a different plan. What is that plan? I'm not quite sure yet, but if it involves starvation (I mean, fasting), then so be it! I will tire my body so much that it will force my mind to work with me!

Come to think of it, I wonder if there are any books on this. You know, there aren't that many books written from an angry woman's perspective. Let me rephrase - not many books depicting the events of what makes a woman, what turns a woman, into an angry person. There are books written by bitter, jealous women who document how great they've changed and what they've done to make the change to become successful and happy. But what about the other way around? I mean, think about this. There are so many great women out there, but so many of them have been wronged in different ways. What about those good, I mean really good, whole-hearted women that have bad events happen to them, and that, in time, forces them to question their morals and beliefs on love and life? Are women not innately cruel? Or is it society that does not allow us to be outspokenly cold, vulgar, and cynical? I'd like to be that person to write a book about the good girl whose high hopes and dreams come crashing down and obliterated. There is no book out there cataloguing the events that lead to a woman's ruin, only her success. Think "Jude the Obscure." I want the world to understand and empathize with the fact that it's not us that are broken and miserable, but it's the world itself that turns us that way.

Bestseller? It's a work in progress. Stay tuned for a happy ending.