Losing a part of me

Category: Realizations

  • Day 660

    My weight is slowly dropping back to where it was before I flew to Texas (nearly a three weeks ago). It is astounding to me that in the last week since my world imploded I have not gone completely to pot. It would not have surprised me had my weight jumped fifteen pounds this past week after what happened last Saturday. While the bathroom scale still has me up 2.2 lbs. since then (my last pre-collapse weigh-in, also my last weigh-in before a completely depressed travel day), it could have been much worse. From that weigh-in I would gain 6.4 lbs. over a four-day period, but have been able to drop 4.2 lbs. these last three days.

    I am slowly coming to terms with the reality of my world which has been completely destroyed. I do not know how things are going to play out, but I do not expect that I will be able to go back to the way things were. It is strange… a week ago I woke up happy and optimistic. I have not gone to bed nor woken up like that since. I have not had a good night sleep in that time. I do not expect I will have one for quite some time.

    When I finish writing this entry I will leave the house for social reasons for the first time since I set foot inside late last Sunday night. I have gone shopping, I have walked my dog. Today I am going to see friends who might, I hope, be able to offer me some sort of comfort. Nobody knows what is going on with me yet. I suspect that had I told any of my friends, they would have been banging on my door immediately and all week. With my ridiculous work schedule this past week (and the next one as well) that just would not do, as I need to maintain both my work schedule and my composure during the day. I cannot let my students know that I do not care about living, let alone computers. I have put on a very brave face and I know that they are learning and enjoying the classes – the results of the mid-course exams yesterday bear that out. The fact that I am dead inside is masked from the world.

    I got the most touching communication yesterday. I truly have no idea who reads this blog; in truth, there are times when I think that nobody reads it. When a reader reached out and told me that she reads my blog every day and that she hopes I am okay, it was more than heartwarming. It is entirely possible she is the reason I did not dive into a bottle of scotch last night… and chase it down with a large platter of deep-fried chicken wings with extra sauce. I am not sure that I would have physically harmed myself, although that thought has certainly crossed my mind. Diving off the addiction wagon would not have killed me, but it would certainly have started a long and slow road back to where I was two years ago.

    Maybe Paul Simon was right. A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries. Maybe the best course of action to never feel this again would be to completely cut myself off from the world. Friends and lovers have hurt me more than any enemy combattant ever could. Maybe that is the answer.

    For most of the last 660 days I have ended my journal entry with a positive wish to my readers to have a great day. I am sorry that right now I do not have it in me to feel anything positive.

  • Day 550

    Yesterday I realized a real change in myself and my eating. Leslie and I did go for lunch to the Chicago-style pizza restaurant, and we did share a 12” deep dish vegetarian pizza (which unfortunately did have green peppers in it despite our asking for it without). I had three of the eight slices, and we packed the remaining three slices to take home with us. We then went for our coffee and beignet, which was delicious, although Leslie assures me that she can make better… and I believe her. So far, none of this is a change. Yes, I stopped after three slices, and I might have eaten a fourth… but that’s not huge. What is huge is that when it came time to eat dinner I thought about the pizza in the fridge and knew that I could not possibly touch it. I might have it tomorrow… but I had a much lighter dinner than that.

    Over drinks and cigars on the patio I thought of my trips to Chicago back in my ‘road warrior’ days, when I was traveling to different cities to teach every week. In July 2012 I was in Chicago for a week and I probably ate deep-dish pizza every evening for dinner. What I should say is that I ate an entire deep-dish pizza every evening for dinner. It would have been the smallest one on the menu, but it was still quite significant. As I mentioned to Leslie, there were very good reasons why I ballooned to nearly 400 lbs. To think that I have not only changed my attitude to not want to eat like that, but also my physiology to not being able to do it… that is a huge change. I suppose the ravages of aging play a part in this as well… I had just turned forty at that point, and I look back at my old self from the far side of my fifty-first birthday and realize that I wish I had done a lot of things differently. It is never too late to start developing good habits, and I am trying.

    Despite the planned cheating of the pizza lunch and beignet dessert, and because I planned for that and ate properly the rest of the day, I was pleased to see a drop in weight from yesterday of nearly a pound. I was completely surprised… but pleasantly so.

    I woke up earlier yesterday morning than I have the last week and thought briefly about going for a walk. I decided instead to make a cup of coffee to enjoy on the balcony with a cigar while chatting with family and reading my book. I did not regret it, but I did tell Leslie that if I were to wake up early again this week that I would go out for a walk. I decided then to go one step further: I would set an alarm for 7:00am every morning and try to walk. While I made a mistake with the alarm for today, I still opened my eyes around 7:15am and did go out for a walk. While the mercury would top out at 103° today, it would not reach that until a bit later. I walked 5.6 miles (9km) at a pretty good pace, and by the time I got home it was still only in the high-80s. I showered and went about my day feeling good in the knowledge that I had exercised.

    I picked up salads for lunch as usually. The plan had been to eat the leftover pizza for dinner. I decided, not wanting to eat such a heavy meal after my evening class (which only ends at 8:00pm), that I would have the pizza for lunch and save the salad for my evening meal. I suspect that was the smart move on my part. I will know better once I step onto the bathroom scale tomorrow morning.

    I had a very productive business meeting in the afternoon, and am home in time to start teaching, which I will do once I press publish on this piece, which I will do now.

    Have a great day folks!