Internet Outage

Its quite interesting, the Internet went out last Tuesday as I was writing an update for the blog. A week later I'm back online. Just over a week later and everything is back to normal. I didn't initially deal with not having internet the first day very well, but by Thursday I just accepted and decided to wait it out, what other choice did I have? It wasn't the best week mentally. I stayed home and in my room most of the time, getting lost in my own thoughts. Out of boredom I started reading old journal and writing entries I had written last year on my iPad. I couldn't read too deep into the journal ones they remind me to much of last year pre-lifestyle change (Though, Im sure that's the point). What's more interesting is how many short stories I wrote, and began to write but never finished. It's clear that writing a book was something I was inching towards, but I wasn't focused enough to see it through.

In therapy while going over some of these old writing entries we discovered an entry that my therapist thinks may have started all of this, the journey I mean. It was titled Note To Self - Pep Talk. Right away I didn't even want to open it, the idea that I gave myself a peptalk made me cringe, I was a little horrified. My therapist insisted I read it. It was about the equivalent of me looking at a picture of myself, it was hard.

Here it is

"I think I'm just about ready to turn my life around. I had to go to the food pantry today because food was so low, and my nephew is here and we could use more to eat. But being there was rough, seeing so many people in need, particularly the families with kids, it was a burst of reality of how hard times have come onto people, and the city. I don't want to be that guy that needs it, there really are more deserving people. (I) Know my weight is keeping me from so much, I just don't know why it hasn't pushed me to lose it. Time and time again I'm miserable and feel gross, ugly and disgusting, because I'm fat. But it's never been enough, why is it that a setback with dieting, or a personal woe, or an embarrassing situation (can) completely  make me give up. I don't get me, it isn't worth it, I'm really not punishing anyone but me, but deep down Brandon (that part makes me cringe the most!), you are a great person and you have so much potential, and it's going to waste, only we lose. We are losing out on jobs, friends, and of course love. We have todo something, I don't want to die fat and miserable, alive 25 plus years and haven't lived a day in my adult life.

I have todo something before it's too late, I still have a chance at happiness and greatness, I can't be ruled by my weight, I am not my weight, there is more to man that these pounds. It's going to be hard, scary, and even humiliating at times, people will stare, people will point, they will laugh, they will make you feel worthless, they won't notice when you lose weight, they won't know you're trying, they won't know how far you've come. You have to fight through it, blood, sweat and tears. Remember that song by mike jones "back then, didn't want me. Now I'm hot, They all on me." That's going to be our anthem one day."

The date of this entry was 7/26/14. So, pretty much right before I put the wheels in motion. I remember crying when I originally wrote that. I think I was crying because I needed to hear that from someone, and it came from me and it was hard. The entries leading up to that were pretty dark, sad, the fever-pitch of my melancholy. I honestly have no idea where I found the strength to give myself such  uplifting encouragement. I can't even do that now and I'm far better off since then. We've certainly rebounded financially speaking, even since earlier this year thanks to mom.

Anywho, It was my therapist who put that timing together, I quickly dismissed it. She thinks that the pep-talk worked. I honestly don't remember ever revisiting it after I wrote it, maybe once. I remember avoiding it, because I was embarrassed of it, I was embarrassed of me. I get secondhand embarrassment even from just myself (by myself) if that makes any sense at all? So until recently if I seen that entry I'd scroll past it. I'd prefer to read about my darker days, than something where I'm being unusually bubbly towards myself. It seems so unnatural, I told my therapist that it had to be a coincidence how the date aligns so close with when I started making major changes in my diet. What are the odds that, that random peptalk subconsciously deep-rooted in my mind and that's why I've lost what I have lost....



P.S

Whats interesting is the reference to that obscure Mike Jones song, in high school is was really popular amongst my peers, I remember not liking the artist, and honestly I  never liked the song that much either, but its main theme I felt like I could relate to someday, if just lost the weight.  The gist is, its a song about the underdog. Its not a great song, not even a decent song, and I honestly cant recall a single time Ive heard that song since graduating high school in 2006. The reference is spot on,however and works perfectly into that pep-talk, but I really dig deep for that.