Whole30, Day 25, Friday 1/26/2017
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.
I don't much care where, said Alice.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go, said the Cat.
So long as I get SOMEWHERE, Alice added as an explanation.
Oh, you're sure to do that, said the Cat. If you only walk long enough.
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
This is day 25 of my 30 days on the Whole30, a month-long cleanse during which you eat no grains, baked goods, sugar, beans, or alcohol. I've been writing posts about this experience since I started this in early January. Links supplied below.
Today for my topic I'd like to look at the art of incompleteness. The beautiful, quirky, inexplicable, and delightful state of being in the middle.
Blueberries and sweet dreams
Here I am on day 25, way past the honeymoon phase. This Whole30 thing is no longer new and fresh. The happy surprises--like the health benefits I did not expect, or the fact that mixing cauliflower, blueberries and butternut puree makes a mighty fine breakfast feast--all these things are old hat by now. I don't expect many more momentous revelations this late in the game. It looks like we are past the wow. So, what should I do now, just mark time until I get to the end?
Almost....where?
When I started writing this post, I was referring to this state I find myself in as "not done." But that language—calling it by what it is not—is part of the problem. Not only do we not know how to be in process, but we stumble over what to call it. If we are Starting or Stopping, Beginning or Ending, we know where we are, and we are a little more comfortable. But if we are in the middle somewhere, mid-process, we can feel a little uneasy. It is undefined, harder to explain. It might call down upon us someone's else's judgment because we are not as far along as they are, or we aren't as far as they think we should be, or we didn't do it right. In some cases, we don't even need someone else to judge us, we can accomplish that quite handily ourselves.
Middle middle middle
Finding myself neither at the beginning nor the end but in the middle of this process, I have a lovely opportunity to get it right this time. To not run full tilt toward the finish line if being in the middle somewhere feels like the right place to be. Beginnings and Endings are fleeting. Being somewhere in the middle is the real deal, the place we live most of our lives. Maybe we can do more than just look forward or backward. Maybe we can look around a little and get comfortable with being exactly where we are.
I have been noodling more and more frantically about what to do when I get to the end of the 30 days. Keep these food restrictions long term since my body seems so happy with them? Keep some and get rid of others? Throw it all out and go back to what I was eating before? Definitely, not that last option, but my options are truly open. What to do? I finally realized I don't have to do anything other than what I have been doing. No need to rush for the finish line if being here in the middle somewhere feels right.
The Plan is no plan
So the plan is this, celebrate the end of the 30 days by having a glass of wine with my sister and a slice of cheese cake with my daughter—little celebrations I plan to enjoy. Then though, I am coming back to this process for a while, making friends with the middle. If an endpoint comes along at some point, I figure I can make friends with that too.
Thanks for reading!
My other Whole30 posts:
Whole30 - Day 20 – Eat Monkeys, Eat! This is my favorite so far. Steem on!
Whole30 - Day 16 – To Sleep Perhaps to Dream In which you get to read about the oh so bizarre dream life of my husband 
Whole30 - Day 13 – Food restriction for a Foody, food for thought
Whole30 - Day 11 – Looks like a knife fight, tastes like heaven
Whole30 – Day 10 – Lest ye mistake me for a paragon
Whole30 – Day 6
Whole30 – Day 5
Whole30 – Day 4
Whole30 - Day 3
Whole30 – Day 2
Whole30 – Day 1
Older posts you might enjoy
An F-Bomb for Christmas
Getting Married at the International Food Court
What I ate yesterday:
Breakfast: Cauliflower, blueberries and butternut "oatmeal" with almonds
Lunch: butternut squash soup and cucumber apple celery salad
Dinner: Cauliflower "rice", peas, onions and egg
Snack: Walnuts, banana, almond milk
painting from my darling daughter's paint box; other images courtesy of pixabay