“Here you go,” I say. “Drink this.”
I hand Husband a glass of whatever it is I'm into at the moment. He accepts it with a wrinkled nose because he knows me. I've been serving him questionable smoothies and juices for years. He'll toss it back, shudder, and go about his day. Sometimes he complains too much and even goes so far as to ask what's in the concoction.
“Do you wanna be healthy or don't you?” I usually say, feeling more like a mom than wife. If he presses further, that's when I might rattle off the ingredients or say something about how his spleen (or whatever organ I'm tending to that day) will love him tomorrow.
In my dogged pursuit of robust health, shiny vitality, and the Fountain of Youth, I like to ingest unusual things. I started drinking apple cider vinegar and lemon juice in water first thing in the morning about seven years ago. I added cinnamon to the mixture years later because I read it was even better that way. No, it’s hot water with lemon in the morning, an old neighbor said, so I tried that. Then I heard someone suggest taking a slug of olive oil mixed with lemon juice upon waking–it’ll cleanse your liver and gallbladder, see–but another source said one should mix cayenne pepper into the oily shot to improve its benefits.
A natural doctor recommended I combine diatomaceous earth, Trace Minerals, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, cream of tartar (for the potassium), and Himalayan salt in twenty-four ounces of water and consume it on an empty stomach each morning. It would soothe my adrenals and get rid of the parasites that might be plaguing me. Shortly after, I read diatomaceous earth might be too rough on the system for long-term use, so I let it go.
Husband makes us a honey/turmeric/cayenne pepper/ginger “miracle cure” for when we’re sick, but even when I'm well, a spoonful to start the day feels like a treat if I lie to myself. Sometimes I wonder if I should drink aloe vera juice again, but I drank a gulp of it first thing each day back in ‘08, and it tasted so wrong I left it there. Now I hear our friends drink fresh celery juice when they wake up, and I'm wondering if I need to copy them.
I begin to witness a common theme in all my wellness cocktails, and Husband speaks what I haven't verbalized yet.
“Notice how a person has to drink all this stuff first thing in the morning on an empty stomach?” he says. “How does that go?”
He makes a solid point. Which first thing should be the first thing? No need to mention to him I have other first things to accomplish each day like oil pulling (sloshing coconut oil around in the mouth for twenty minutes) and running the NuFace (microcurrent) device over my skin before applying the all-important Vitamin C serum, which of course must be the first product of the day. He already sees my daily plodding along the gnarly path to longevity.
I'm scrolling through YouTube now, and uh-oh. I see something new. Apparently, garlic water is everything and probably something I need to adopt. But when during the day should I drink the stinky liquid that'll affect those around me?
Yep, you guessed it.
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