Detoxification

I look odd.

I mean I’m still recognizable as myself I just look, well, odd. It’s a bit like seeing myself through a fuzzy filter and as much as I would like to attribute this to my tired eyes, I know I’ve let the upkeep slip. I know I’m aging. This is just not what I expected. I expected wrinkles and sagging but the fuzziness – dullness, dryness, general wumpyness – didn’t see that coming.

As I strive for balance I can’t ignore that being in my 40’s, jumping up every day to make the donuts and then rushing home to chase around a 2 year old isn’t adding to my erosion of youth. I put my hands on Stella’s perfect rosy skin and see my mother’s hand, crisscrossed in lines.

But put aside all the martyr-rific isn’t aging a bitch stuff for a moment. I can’t change how my multiple roles, work stress and the toll of pregnancy and delivery has affected me – but I also can’t turn a blind eye to what I’m doing to me.

To congratulate myself on striving for balance, I unconsciously decided that drinking half my body weight in caffeine and the other in beer is not only okay but a necessary part of the process. Not sure what the correlation is there but it’s a fact I’ve been ignoring. And really, since Stella was born, I have given myself a pass on exercise and grooming.

So. I can either mourn my youth with a Venti cinnamon dolce latte and one of those Starbucks muffins that I pretend has no calories, or I can get off my dimpled butt and attempt to shore up the good stuff I got left.

To start, I gotta rein in the rampant reward system and I think I know what will do the trick.

For the last decade, I have fallen in and out of the Living Beauty Detox Program by Ann Louise Gittleman. She first enlightened me about the hormones in the chickens and all the other bullet points we know so well now. It’s been a few years since I’ve taken on a seasonal detox, but it’s time to bring it back. After a week of a very restrained diet, and some seriously stinky tea, I will emerge with a genuine appreciation of every sip of alcohol, every taste of cheese and generally it wakes me up to be AWARE of everything I put in my body. (And hopefully a little lighter.)

And now, I'll just hope I don't kill anyone in a caffeine free rage.