21

I've heard it said that it takes 21 days to make a habit. 

Yesterday marked 21 days from the start of the famous "new year's resolutions." And yesterday, I went to the gym. All commitments are like going to the gym.

You start off excited about your plan of action. You exercise / eat well / read your Bible / don't pick up that one ____ (cigarette, glass, scoop and cone) and feel good about it. You start determined, it's satisfying and once you finish (or the craving is gone), you feel great. Excited to do it again the next day.

But, like after exercising hard the first day, you are sore the next. You muscles ache. Your cravings stronger. Your desire to stay committed a little less. But you can't give up after the first day! So day 2 comes and goes and maybe you didn't exercise as hard (like me today), eat as many veggies, read as much or as long, or maybe you gave in just a little bit - but it's not like you're giving up! Oh, no!

But come day 4, or, if you're strong enough, day 14, keeping this up is quite a chore.

You're out of breath, with no more time to exercise. You don't hold those muscles as long or go up as high. The grains and green taste gross and you move things around in your plate. The Bible is a bore and you find yourself thinking of other things, or skipping around to find something more interesting. The drag of smoke / sip of beer / lick of ice cream shushes every complain in the world. It tastes good in your mouth. Goes down just right and fills you oh so nicely. 

And by day 21, it's over. 

Three weeks, less then a month, 21 days. They go by so fast. But when you are trying to do something better for yourself, something that pushes your limits, they drag on like the 40 days and nights of storming rain that poured and crashed over the earth. And that's kind of how it feels.

So now, day twenty-whenever-you're-reading-this, any resolutions you made are gone out the window.

I even failed to post most of the Mondays and Thursdays I said I would. 

My excuse? I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. Now I'll try to write them in advance. Some will be better than others, but my life one so unlike so many others my age, and yet, so the same and regular, mundane as all the others. 

Shall we try something? A 21 day something? Let's start on Monday. I'll be here.