Twitter

Twitter has a thing where they have these hashtags and people post very ugly comments and they follow them with hashtags that make them funny.

Example from Nathan Fillion (one of the many stars from Firefly) (and I'm paraphrasing here from memory):   "The gas station near my house doesn't take $50 bills. #firstworldproblems"

So I've been dealing with a first world problem (forced starvation) and it brought up this circle of thoughts that -- to my two faithful readers -- may seem nonsensical.

Who fasts in the first world?   I know that I do, for my reasons, and Dolly Parton does, for hers, but I was talking to someone I know and she told me that a woman we both know fasts regularly.

There is a lovely woman named Abhilasha (not her real name, but it means desire, and I see no need to use her real name), and someone else that I know told me that Abhilasha fasts every Thursday.   I thought to myself, how odd is that?   Is it religious?  Does she do it to maintain her weight?  Is it a custom?

So one day, I pinned her at the coffee bar and I said, so hey, A1212 tells me that you fast every Thursday.   How long have you been doing that?

Abhilasha looked at me, blinked her eyes, and thought.   She said, I think it is been since about seven years.  I said, wow, that's quite a commitment.  

*** Hey, look, I wasn't intending to pry.   This fascinated me.   Have you ever fasted?   It's hard.  I can't imagine doing it once a week. ***

She said, yes, well, it was hard at first, but it gets better.    It's just the one day per week.   Then I asked her why she does it.   She calmly told me, "I have two boys [actually, the boys are identical twins but I knew that and she knew I knew].   When one of the boys was very small he became sick and he wasn't getting better and I didn't know what to do.   So I prayed and I said that I would do this."

Now, she didn't explain the rest of the story that is obviously there, but I was and continue to be awed by the sheer reasonableness of it all.   I can't even imagine the conversation that she had with God on that day, but it makes me wonder, what would she think if it hadn't worked and she would feel like she underplayed her cards?   Does she ever think that she overpaid?  

It doesn't matter.   I think after seven years, it just is.

*  *  *

I had to fast yesterday and drink suprep so that we could catch any colon cancer early.   It was unpleasant and expensive and there was nothing but good news for me.  #firstworldproblems