Well! I had three emails this morning with three different prompts! I didn’t really see how Geekin’ Hard‘s prompt this morning had much to do with reflecting on 2011, so I decided to go with the #resound11 prompt for the day, which was “Vices”.

Did you slip back into any old habits that you wish you hadn’t? Did you gain any new habits that you wish you would have walked away from? Did you discover the evils of Nutella? ‘Fess up … we won’t tell.

This prompt may sound dark and dreary, but we’ll be back to our sunshine selves tomorrow. Take today to reflect on a vice (or two or twelve) that you’d like to give up in the new year.

Way back in 2009, I made a goal to stop drinking soda, specifically Diet Coke. Up to that point, I had religiously been drinking it since I was three. Yes, three years old. I am now on the cusp of 26. 23 years of aspartame and artificial caramel coloring. If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, I don’t know what will.

In fact, I did stop drinking Diet Coke and soda altogether for a whole year; May 2010 to May 2011. For that time, I only drank water and unsweetened iced tea. Oh and, the occasional lemonade.

In May of this year, 2011, Mr. Fox and I travelled to Philly, where we grew up, and all bets were off. I still feigned off Diet Coke, but I started drinking the sugared (well, the shit with HFCS in it) crap again. Coke, Sierra Mist, all that jazz. I am not blaming the fact that I went to Philly for my reversion back to old habits, because it was my lack of willpower. I can attribute it to the food I was eating as well, but I won’t. It was all Esther.

So of course, it was only a matter of time before the idea of pumping my veins with high fructose corn syrup started to disgust me, and I started drinking Fresca again. I was still drinking the unsweetened iced tea, but I was also drinking Fresca. Fresca was the first non-Diet Coke diet soda I had when I was younger. Still attempting to push Diet Coke to the back of my mind, but entering back into the diet soda category.

And then something snapped. Mr. Fox and I were at Qdoba one day, and without even thinking about it, I put Diet Coke in my cup. It was all over. The taste was heavenly. Kind of like that caramel macchiato that you know you shouldn’t drink but you drink it anyway because it just tastes so. damn. good. A guilty pleasure of sorts.

Granted, I don’t drink it nearly as much as I used to. But the fact that I reverted back to my old ways to drink it disgusts me. I was perfectly happy with my fruit-infused waters and unsweetened iced teas, but I just had to have that taste again.

So, there’s a little less than a month until 2012, and I am making an effort to reintroduce water and iced tea back into my body, and cast away the evil formaldehyde in a can. It’s not doing anything for my health, that’s for sure. I think back to last year when I trained my brain to think that the water I was drinking tasted like a syrup-y sweet can of Diet Coke, and realize that it will be just as hard to do now as it was back then.

But I am up for a challenge. I would be lying if I said it would be an easy one though, since I am sitting here with a can of Diet Coke next to me.

smh.

reverb11 resound 11 day two vices bad habits diet coke