We do a strange thing when we decide to change.

For example, we say I am starting this on Sunday. In my case, its Keto.

Then Saturday becomes a farewell tour. One last deep dish pizza. One last dessert. One last fatayer. One last night of eating whatever I want before I become a disciplined person.

I wrote about this a few weeks ago. I announced keto. I said I needed one final dozen Japanese pancakes first, as a goodbye.

I had the pancakes.

I did not start keto.

Here is what happened instead

After the pancakes, my To-eat-at-at-restaurant list expanded. A new item added. And you cannot go to a new restaurant on keto, obviously, because the whole point of a new restaurant is to try the thing they are known for, and nobody is known for a salad.

So that was one more.
And it is never enough.

Then Baskin Robbins released Beach Day as flavour of the summer.

Blue salted vanilla, made with sea salt, swirled with graham cracker sand, with milk chocolate caramel-filled sea turtles swimming through it and little flecks of frosting.

Sea turtles. In the ice cream.

Nobody can be expected to start a diet in the same month that appears, and it is only there for a limited time, which they say in the advertisement, repeatedly, because they know exactly what they are doing.

So that was one more.
And it is never enough.

Then mango sticky rice. Which I had been thinking about for a while, and which I told myself was seasonal, although I have no evidence that mangoes have a season in this country or that anyone here has ever respected one.

So that was one more.
And it is never enough.

And then, and this is the one I cannot defend, I made cheesecake. Myself. In my own kitchen. With my own hands. Nobody put it there. There was no occasion. I ordered online, bought cream cheese and biscuits and cream, and manufactured the best cheesecake.

So that was one more.
And it is never enough.

But you do not have to be finished with the old thing to begin the new one.

You can still want the bread and choose differently. You can still want the couch and go for the walk. You can still feel completely unready and begin anyway.

Change does not start when the wanting stops. It starts when you stop making the wanting a precondition.

There will always be one more meal. One more occasion. One more excuse. One more reason that today does not count.

And if the condition for starting is that today has to feel like enough first, then it never will.

Because it is never enough. That is what it is for.

So, keto.

I have to start. Not should. Have to. The reasons have not changed since the day I announced it, and every week I do not start is a week I will have to do later anyway.

And the thing standing between me and starting is mango sticky rice, which I saw earlier this week and have been dreaming of and like its name its not going away. Sticky.

That is the whole obstacle. Not a wedding. Not a trip. Not Eid. A sticky messy dessert I have eaten before and will maybe one day be able to eat it again at any point for the rest of my life.

But that is how it works, and I know it now. It is never a good enough reason. It is only ever the next reason.

So the line goes here.

Not after the mango sticky rice. Not on Sunday. Not once I feel ready, because I have been waiting to feel ready for two months and the feeling has not shown up and is not coming.

Here. Today. While still wanting it.

Because you never stop wanting it. You just start anyway.

And it is never enough.
Always.