Losing a part of me

Category: Freemasonry

  • Day 1242

    As planned, I spent the afternoon with one friend, then the evening with a group of buddies and brothers from my Lodge (and some of their families). It was a cross between a nice distraction and a horrible reminder of what I am going through. I need to get past the worst of my issues before I can move forward. My weight is the least of my concerns. The complete absence of joy and happiness from my life is what I need to address.

    While my sleep score was down below 70 again last night (to a 69) I was nonetheless able to get 7.5 hours of sleep, which is important because while I might need more, I had been getting much less. I likely would have snuck another thirty minutes in had Princess Sophie not insisted on going out again last night when I came home… but she was good enough to make it clear that she wanted to go out, and I try to be a good enough doggie daddy to listen.

    Speaking of being a daddy, there is another reason I am in the dumps. I have not heard from my children today… some Father’s Day.

    Have a great day folks… I likely won’t.

  • Day 1216

    As bad as I am doing, it was somewhat of a relief to spend much of the day today with two very close friends. Thank you David, and thank you Mitchell.

  • Day 1215

    Oops.

  • Day 1197

    Today is Yom Ha’Aztzmaut, the Israeli Day of Independence. I have a lot to do, mostly in preparation for the most useless exam I have to take tomorrow. It is a certification exam for the class that I am teaching next week, and it earns you a certification that I earned nearly six years ago and have maintained ever since. The customer wants that exact exam on my transcript, so here I sit going over some of the minutia that might come up on the exam. It could be worse.

    My original plan was to skip my Lodge’s Meeting of General Purpose this evening so that I could attend the Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebrations in Hamilton. Unfortunately, I can no longer do that, as one of the members of the Lodge passed away this week. To make it slightly more complicated, he is the brother with whom I had a very contentious relationship, and while I disagreed with him and a lot of what he said and did, I want to be there to express my sadness of his passing. At this evening’s meeting we will be discussing the details of his Masonic Funeral which are extremely important, and I will not miss the meeting.

    I am trying to cope… I do not know if it is working, but I am trying everything that I can. This morning (after Her Floofness and I came back from our walk) I went to the fridge to start preparing my breakfast, and I remembered that I used the last of the eggs yesterday. Despite my stress, anxiety, despair, and depression I am going to try once again to get back onto a program of some sort. I am going to have one midday meal, but other than that I am going to have only the meal replacement shakes. I hope that I can stick to it this time. How easy should it be to stay true? In a vacuum it would be simple. In my current reality? Not so simple. Putting one foot in front of the other isn’t simple… staying alive is not so simple. I have to try,

  • Day 1152

    Day One of my renewed efforts saw slight but not total fails. I found myself away from home for longer than I expected, and I bought a bag of potato chips. I was certain that when I weighed myself this morning I would be back up to 212 lbs.; what a relief that my weight was in fact down by a pound from yesterday, making for a total drop since Thursday morning of 4.4 pounds. Considering how disgustingly heavy I was then I am not calling this a resounding success, but at least I know that I am trying to regain my footing and begin to make progress.

    I was sitting with a Lodge brother yesterday and I told him, without going into the details of how, that I decided to drop twenty pounds before the banquet. He told me that he would encourage me and discussed his weight loss goals as well. I was glad that he did not try to discuss his strategy and did not ask me about mine. I really do not feel like discussing my plans for how I will do it but am happy to have the support of people who are encouraging me to do it.

    I also had a lovely video chat with my wife yesterday. It is hard living so far apart, and I am glad that technology allows us to not only talk but to see each other as well. I cannot imagine how much more difficult a long-distance relationship would have been before the era of video chats, let alone reasonable phone calls. I dated a girl when I was in the Army, and she lived in the United States. I cannot imagine how much money we wasted on long-distance calls… before she came to Israel to see me, and we both realized that it was a mistake. My marriage to Leslie is absolutely the right thing, but I am still glad that we do not have to pay thousands of dollars on phone bills!

    I did not sleep very well last night, and it was in large part because of my shoulder which has been bothering me. I spoke with a Lodge brother who is a chiropractor, and he is going to help me out, but first I have to have a day when I can go to his office. That will not be for a couple of weeks yet, and so I am thinking about taking a couple of pain killers in the evening before I go to sleep. I am hoping that helps, but we will see. If not, then I will stop taking them and I will try something else. In the meantime, my sleep score of 63 from last night does not bode well for how this day will go; I will be teaching from 8:30am until 5:00pm, and then from 6:30pm until 10:30pm. It is going to be a very long day… and I have three of those this week, while Tuesday and Thursday I am only teaching the daytime class.

    I said last week that I was hoping the packed schedule would help me with my eating, but it did not… if one can go to the grocery store to buy provisions, one can eat; also, once one is at the grocery store already then it is easy to just buy a couple of things that are counterproductive to weight loss. Knowing that I will not be shopping this week, but will be relying solely on meal replacements, is going to be most helpful. I am still weaning myself off food and will likely have my last plate of pasta for lunch today. Okay, I actually have plenty of pasta in the house, but only one meal worth of pasta sauce, so that should do it. I am giving myself this option because I know that the first few days of the program are extremely difficult, both emotionally and physically, and so if I find myself lagging in class this morning then I will give myself the option. I will not absolutely eat, but if I need it then I shall. I also know that if I do not eat it for lunch, but after a long day of teaching I feel I might need it to make it through the evening of teaching then I will have it between classes. It is a safety net if nothing else.

    So far this morning I am doing well on water and coffee, and I did remember to add fibre to my morning meal replacement. Also, in anticipation of a resounding success getting back onto the program, I have ordered more shakes.

    Wish me luck folks… and have a great day!

  • Day 934

    I am not sure if my adrenaline high from yesterday has quite abated yet. What a day.

    As I wrote yesterday, I was awake at 4:15am yesterday, after getting less than three hours of real sleep. Why? Well, I was awake at that ungodly hour to pick my buddy up from the airport. Why did I sleep poorly? Mostly from the excitement and anticipation of what Saturday held. Jay had flown into town for one day to support me as I was raised to the rank of Master Mason. The ceremony was built up to me as one that I will remember for the rest of my life. There was a lot of preparation involved, and it would all culminate with the rites at the Lodge meeting. Everything involved lived up to (or exceeded) all expectations, and I was riding high until I forced myself to go to bed around 10:00pm… knowing that this morning would be another very early morning.

    My alarm sounded at 4:00am so that I could get up and get Jay to the airport in time for his very early flight. While he kept telling me he felt guilty for making me get up so early, I assured him that I could come home and go back to sleep. That has not happened so far, but Jay did get to the airport on time; I came home and took Her Royal Floofness for a very early walk; occasionally in the winter months we go out and come back in the dark, but I cannot remember the last time that happened in the summer… I suspect it would have been when we were living in California, and I had to teach an early class in another time zone. In any event, we had a good turn of it, and then came home to enjoy our breakfast.

    It is little surprise that my weight was a bit up this morning. I was pretty moderate in my eating yesterday, but there were some small cheats that were excessive, if not in the quality consumed then in the density of the fat and sugar. Yes, I had a butter tart, a desert treat for which Canada is known (and which were purchased to share with the numerous foreigners who attended my ceremony). This, after a breakfast of French toast, sandwiches for lunch, and sushi for dinner. Not a good choice in the lot… but it was a special day.

    There is nothing special about today, and I will go back to eating much smarter than I did these last two days. I had my regular omelette for breakfast. I will enjoy the sushi leftovers for lunch, but my evening will be a piece of chicken and a salad. That’s it.

    I am glad that my doctor renewed my prescriptions on Friday, but I did not manage my meds properly yesterday. Despite leaving the house before 5:00am and knowing that I would not be returning home until late afternoon or early evening, I should have brought a dose of the anti-inflammatories with me. I did not, and by 1:30pm I was in discomfort and then pain. I was quite relieved to arrive home and take the meds after 6:30pm. I have no idea why I broke my routine this morning, but I did not take any of my meds before leaving for the airport. Of course, I was home by 5:30am, and still took my pills earlier than I would normally. It is now 8:30am and I am feeling much more comfortable than I did three hours ago.

    It is a lovely day, but we can see that the summer is ebbing. I do not mind too much… it will still be a comfortable warm and sunny day, even though I did need a sweater for Floof’s walk. I am sure I will have plenty of time to enjoy the balcony in my regular shorts and golf shirt.

    Have a great day folks!