Joe’s Journal: Day 32 – The Wind at My Back

There was something about setting out on this road trip that gave me a natural high. I know part of the euphoria I was feeling had to do with surviving the first, detoxifying half of my Reboot and finally reaping its benefits – clarity, energy and a new sense of optimism. As an added bonus people had begun commenting on how good I looked and how much weight I had already lost as well as complimenting my persistence for sticking with it. A couple of weeks before it was as if I’d been walking straight into a hurricane. Now I felt the wind at my back, propelling me forward.

I could feel the transformation happening with me. Momentous change was also the theme of the moment for the entire country with the 2008 U.S. presidential election in full swing, which was one of the reasons we’d decided that our first stop on the road trip would be Washington, D.C.

Arriving at Washington, D.C. I could immediately feel the electricity in the air, the excitement. I thought about all the marches and protests and other events that had taken place there over the centuries. Right up on Capitol Hill were men and women who’d been elected to office, who had the power to make laws, to change people’s lives.

I walked around the National Mall and continued conducting man (and woman)-on-the-street interviews. I was getting a bit more comfortable in my role in front of the camera by this time, and had learned that introducing my mission to people by sharing photos of myself taken at my fattest, right before I’d started the Reboot, helped set them at ease.

Have you been following my past journal entries? Make sure you catch up here.  I’m sharing these thoughts with you as part of the 2nd Anniversary celebration of Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead so I hope you are either able to relate or be inspired by my journal entries.