1.  Three of the four people in my family did a cleanse last week. Was the timing questionable? Um, yeah, but detox we did. Call me a glutton for punishment.

2.  I wrote about doing a detox cleanse here and sure enough, it hasn’t gotten any easier in the two years since. I guess it had been just long enough for me to forget what a pain those six days were.

3.  I find time lends itself to selective oblivion. This sort of forgetfulness is the only thing that allows me to repeat utterly uncomfortable activities like, say, difficult dental procedures. My convenient fugue state is solely responsible for a particularly horrible root canal, but I digress.

4.  It was this gently foggy memory of detoxing that even made it conceivable I might jump into a six day cleanse in the midst of corona days and #blacklivesmatter protests.

5.  Seriously, if I’d had my wits about me I never would have agreed to a week without coffee. Or alcohol. That sounds like an extraordinarily bad idea during stressful times. But detox we did!

6.  I didn’t think I’d make it on day one. Last time it was just me; this time BrightSide and Bear were clawing their way through detox too, and that made it a whole other ball game.

7.  It was sometime around Bear’s tenth these drinks are DISGUSTING and I’m sooo HUNGRY on the very first day that I thought man, I can’t do this. I’m not gonna make it through six whole days of fielding other people’s gastrointestinal trauma while enduring the caffeine withdrawal headache from hell. I can’t do this! But do it I did.

8.  I didn’t lose the headache until day five which gave me ninety-six whole hours to wonder why in the ever-loving hell I put myself through this a second time. Day five was better, though, and by day six I was clear.

9.  As painful as this sounds – and believe me, in this moment I’m entirely aware of the pain level – I should probably do this once a year. It clears my head and, at the risk of sounding all scientific, de-gunks my system. It makes me feel better.

10.  But the day seven coffee and margarita? Those were heavenly.