Day 22

I'm a little annoyed this morning. Forgetting to log out of my instant messenger client at work, I came in this morning to find an IM from one of the other guys doing the fast. Apparently he's decided to drop out, which leaves one of us out of the small group left (I think there are two others still going in other parts of the larger group).

I guess I'm annoyed mostly because 'he got hungry'... he didn't get sick, he didn't faint, he got hungry... in his slight defense he got 'ravenously' hungry, but I still feel like it's a cop out.

I've felt hungry. I've even written about wanting to stop the night I went to Applebee's last Wednesday, but I didn't. I made a commitment between myself and God that I would do this... and maybe I'm just stubborn, but I feel like I need to complete it. Truthfully, I've felt pretty good for most of this and it hasn't been a really HUGE effort, but I guess there's still part of me that has a lot of derision for this person that dropped out. That's probably not a healthy thing.

I know he's working hard, but I've been working pretty hard too. I have a project I need to tape on Tuesday mornings... that means getting up at 4:30am, I had a class I needed to tape last night, that meant being here until 8pm. I spent several hours on the Chili Cook-Off project the other night after I got off work. I spent 5 hours last night and this morning working on a DVD project for another client. I'm tired and I feel like it's been a long week, but I don't know that my friends work load is any harder than the stuff I've been carrying around all week.

I guess I probably shouldn't be comparing. I probably shouldn't say... "Well, I've gone 22 days so far and still feel pretty good... why in the hell can't he even go 16/17 days?"

There's a certain amount of competitiveness inside of me, and it's hard when I don't have someone who's along side me that I can relate to about what I'm going through, someone I can commiserate with, someone that I can push against and who can push me to keep going. I wish I had been around when he was hungry. This friend suggested to me last Wednesday night that I at least give it until the morning to decide if I was going to end the fast and that was enough to push me forward. If I had been around, maybe I could have said the same thing for my friend.

I hope my friend was able to learn something out of the experience that he'll be able to apply to his life... I hope that he doesn't go back to old behaviors. I hope that he's able to build an exercise regiment and get to the point where the weight he still has starts to come off. Part of me fears though that none of that is true. Oh well, I guess the onus is on him... which is where it's been all along.

You're still my friend and I still love you like a brother. If I'm a pain in the ass it's only because I see the potential that you have in you and I want you to achieve that potential.


226 this morning... I woke up tired but with the extra freelance hours this week that's pretty understandable. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some sleep tonight. I need to work on insulating the apartment tonight. The January freeze has made our cozy little aboad pretty inhospitable, particularly my office in the den. Maybe I'll pick up a little space heater on the way home tonight.

More later.