I’ve started drinking a lot more water lately, and I’m struggling to understand how I didn’t before. Middle of last year, I was drinking five cups of coffee in the morning and five beers at night and nothing in between. I didn’t feel particularly shitty, because whatever, that’s how I did at the time. But both are dehydrating, and so I don’t really understood how my body just took that. 

And now that I’m in the habit of thinking to myself “Oh, I should go drink some water”, I don’t understand how I never did. These days, if I’m feeling sullen, cough-y, lethargic, depressed, or if my ADD or OCD are acting up, I go and I take a drink of water. And it ALWAYS helps.

Sometimes, water makes it a lot, lot better. Sometimes I take a drink of water and stop freaking out, and no longer freaking out is amazing. Or it’ll give me a boost of energy, or make my body hurt less. Other times, it only helps a little. But at those times, a little might be all I need to stop continuing down Irritable Jerkass Avenue or going down Self Hate Lane or taking a trip through Intrusive Thoughts park, turn around, and actually get something positive done. Water is just fantastic for me.

Why did I wait so long to start drinking water purposefully and regularly?

Because it felt like a chore. For the same reason fruits and vegetables felt like a chore, and the same reason exercising felt like a chore. Because I had read so many weight-loss guides that told me to “drink more water!”. And then, the next day or next week, I would read another get-skinny tip to “drink more water!” and realize that I had not had 64 ounces a day minimum. And it made me feel like shit. I felt like a failure and I felt like a slob who would never lose the weight.

And so water became not something that my body needed to feel good, but something I did to try to lose weight. And there’s nothing I hate doing like trying to lose weight.