The Treasure Hunt

Saturday January 4, 2014 9:13 am

Apparently if you live anywhere from the East Coast to the Midwest you are probably waking up to frigid cold with more on the way... I like it! For a very long time I had always wanted to go and live one year in Barrow, Alaska. I wanted to experience the extreme cold and extended periods of darkness. I suppose it was on my bucket-list of things I wanted to do before dying? Then, several years ago I got pretty sick and at some point during that prolonged illness I started suffering severe depression and an extreme aversion to darkness!

I could feel actual dread beginning to well inside me at just the thought of approaching darkness. Typically I am a person who doesn't like to allow myself to fear things so I will try and find some way to face whatever it is to prove (to myself I guess) that I'm not afraid? However, that time I had no strength to overcome nor any way to test my fear other than to experience it through the long winter nights. Nights without number I wouldn't sleep and I would close the door (so I wouldn't bother anyone else by being awake) to my small front office of our house on Plank Road and I would pace a 10 foot span in front of my desk, back-and-forth... all night long! I could hardly wait until I could see the sky beginning to lighten through my closed drapes. For me, those were some very long, and lonely, and scary nights!

Those were a bad couple of years for me. However, now I'm apparently back to my old normal??? self and I again like the cold, long, winter nights and Barrow, Alaska again would be some place I would like to live, for at least awhile.

Well, after writing about those, not so happy memories from a few years ago, it is time for me to get ready to leave for work. I began last evening another liquid fast and this one I am hoping to continue for an extended period of time. I have a certain (artificial) goal weight for me to be at and I'm weary with my starts and stops and my 'oh so close' and then finding some way to miss it again. NOT THIS TIME!!! As the old saying goes, “Come hell or high water” I plan on reaching that goal and sooner rather than later. Take care, “Y'all!”