Just open the door…

We can feel frozen where we are. We can believe that nothing is possible beyond where we are right now. We can feel that we are too old, that we have had our chances in life, and that there is nothing new under the sun for us. We can believe that. We would be wrong.

5 months ago today I started the ketogenic diet. I have not had one bite of non-keto food since I started and though I had thought, and hoped, I would lose weight faster — I have lost 31 pounds as of today — many things have happened to me that are remarkable. I have written about them here a number of times now but to summarize I am no longer in the diabetic range, my blood pressure normalized, I have lost the weight and am continuing to lose, and several inches all over, and I am off psych meds completely. All of this is simply remarkable. The ketogenic diet is not just a weight loss diet. It addresses overall health in so many ways that the weight loss itself is almost incidental. To follow the ketogenic diet is to gain a new lease on life. The day I opened the door and stepped through into the world of keto it was like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to full-blown technicolor because I chose life in a way I hadn’t in decades. I have been on every diet imaginable trying to lose weight, but that’s all I thought about, losing the weight. I did not for a second think about overall health and wellness. Now it is the basis for my whole life. And once you make these changes there is no going back. Go back to what?

And this daily blog experiment has been transformative. I have talked about this many times as well but there is something almost magical about the process, from the very beginning when I had to stretch, some days, to find anything to report that I might find happiness in to today when, despite life’s ups and downs, to go back to a life of bleak, dark despair is just not something I will allow. No matter what it takes I have chosen Life in every way possible, and though I am going through a period when the daily ups and downs without the cushion of medication can be challenging it is as I tried to say above about keto, once you have opened that door to a whole new world you simply can’t bear to go back. And all of this is just the beginning.

Last year, when it was painful every single day just to open my eyes and enter the day, I could not imagine that there could be anything more for me. I had been so far down for so long that being “up” not only seemed impossible but what did up really mean anyway? Even if I could feel better I was in my 60’s, I had come through a devastating time and lost the only financial security I had had so there wasn’t the money to start anew, or so I imagined. I couldn’t see a way to meet someone and have a relationship because what did I have to offer? By this stage of life people have had their career and are on firm footing financially with a plan for retirement, ready to do all of those things they had looked forward to doing all their working life and with the wherewithal now to do them. This is not the case for me and I have felt embarrassed and kind of hopeless on the relationship front. Would it be possible, from where I stand, to find someone who saw enough value and worth in me that these things wouldn’t matter? But I have stepped through the door into this new life and from where I stand I have come to believe that anything is possible.

St. Francis of Assisi wrote, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” This is the plan I am following. The diet, my health, the medication, the search for happiness, the dedication and determination to have a better life, and to help others, as I find my own way, to find their way too. These blog posts, the videos I am creating, they are a beginning. There is more to come. It is all unfolding in mysterious and beautiful ways before me each day. I have faith, and I believe that there is always so much more possible for us than we ever knew, that as long as we are alive and breathing there are so many wonders yet to behold. They are on the other side of that door that is right in front of us. We simply have to summon up the belief that the best is yet to come and is within our reach. If we don’t believe this how do we go on living?

I think that everyday, when we open our eyes, when we rise from our beds, we have our hand on the doorknob, we have the chance to choose life. I think every day we have to make that choice, perhaps every moment. It can be terrifying but the rest of our life, the opportunities, the miracles, the possibilities are all on the other side. Will you open the door and walk through to the other side, or will you slam it shut and turn your back on all that you might have and be? Every day now I open the door and step through, never knowing what I will find, but being certain that if I don’t I will be allowing this precious gift of the life given me to ebb away. I choose life, today, in this moment, tomorrow, always. I choose life. I choose life.