I want to be Radical!

 “They only live to get radical.”

-       Bodhi

 

“Goddamn! You are one radical son of a bitch!”

-       Bodhi

 

“The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

-       Hunter S. Thompson

        

“Too often we are scared, scared of what we might not be able to do, scared of what people might think if we tried, we let our fears stand in the way of our hopes. Why? There's really no time to be afraid. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Everything!”

 

 

 

 

What do you want to be? Truly? What do you want to be Billy b?

I want to be Radical! In my life, my writing, my work, everything! I want to be Radical!

Wait, wait, wait?  The little voice in my head says, you want to be a Radical?

No, no, no, I shake my head and laugh, now what I mean I want to live to get RADICAL!

I understood the other four principles you say you want to live your life by: “A dreamer”; fearless; honest; and free.  This Radical or to live to get Radical, I don’t understand.

You remember why we moved to California? 

Yes, how could we ever forget: beach to learn to surf, mountains to ski, rollercoaster to ride, places to hike, live.

Yes, and have we done that?

No!

That is why I have developed these 5 core principles to live my life by. 

1)    Be a Dreamer

2)    Honest

3)    Free

4)    Fearless

5)    Live to Get Radical

I want to live.  I want to live free.  I want to be alive.  I want to be able to go to games, dinners, bars, movies.  I want fit in the places I go.  However, I also want to have excitement in my life. I crave it. I need it, I want it. 

I am changing.  I know the pants aren’t as loose as they should be. I know that the scale may or may not be in our favor.  I also know we are only eating Tyson’s foods.  I know we are only snacking on natural foods.  We are walking the path. I am moving.  Slowly but surely I am moving.  Moving has become so hard for me lately.  My body is succumbing to the burden it has been asked to carry.  I am moving though.  I am feeling better day by day.  Moment by moment and I feel the momentum shifting in my favor.  Can you feel the tidal shift? 

I can…

So, yes, I want to live to get Radical.  I want to climb Mt. Eden and Bailey Road on my bike, if only to go down the other side and feel the wind in my face, because going downhill at top speed is when I have felt the most alive.  I want to ski, but not only ski, I want to jump and go fast.  I want the wind to hit my face so hard my eyes water.  I want to slalom on one water ski and jump the wake.  I want the waves to hit me in the face as I paddle out to surf them.  I want to ride the rollercoaster with the biggest hills and the most loops.  I want to live.  I want to have fun.  Not in a bar but out there in the world and in the sun.  to me this is what it means to live to get radical.  Have fun.  Travel.  Dare to do things that make your pulse quicken and make you feel alive.  I was born to do more than what I have done.  I was born to be so much more.  I have fallen into the darkness.  However, I see my path now.  I see that I crave life, real life.  Not just health but all the exciting stuff you get to do with it.  I choose life.  I want life.  I am life.

This is what I mean by getting radical.  I mean going out there into the world without fear and I live.  I live the life I deserve to have.  The life that I have denied myself for so long because I have been a stupid fatty.  I say stupid fatty because I was dumb, like many of us are.  We take life for granite.  We just assume some day we will do something; not realizing the only life really lived is in the moment.  It isn’t in the past it isn’t in the future it is now.  Right now. In this moment of time is when we actually live.  I understand that now.  At the apex of my life as an obese person, I understand and will cherish every moment that I have remaining on this plane of existence. 

I will body surf in Hawaii.  I have always wanted to run and play in the waves.  I will brave the black diamonds of Steamboat again.  I will ski in powder so deep you can see anything below my chest.  Fresh Powder!  I will go back to King’s Island and I will ride the vortex again.  I will live.  I will go to Jamaica and I will ride the jet ski’s and much like I did at Mill Creek, I will tell myself I am living to get radical and as I dance across the waves.  I will salmon at sunset with sprays so high you won’t even see me from under the falls.  I will live.  I will ride balls to the wall up Eden and Bailey and I will fly down them with the wind in my face and the only thing between the road and me is my bike, the speeds will be amazing.  I will feel that rush.  I will know once again what it means to be alive.  Hear this now… in the blog, I will find the biggest fucking water slide I can find and I will ride it down once I get to my goal weight.  I will leave my stomach at the top and I will fall and be free.  I want it to be radical.  I want to live to get radical.  I want to live.  I can feel it. I want it.  I need it.  I crave it.  Can you feel it?  I want need it.  These things are so ordinary yet; I can’t do one of them right now but soon.  My life is coming.  My life will be what I want it to me.  I will live to be radical.  I will live to have fun again.  Real fun.  Not fun at the bottom of a bottle or on a plate.  No.  These things. These are the things that make a life worth living.  These things are what make me want to change my life. I have forgotten them. I had forgotten that I loved them.  Yes, I loved to ski and jump moguls. I love to go bare ass down a water slide.  I love to dive.  I loved to go fast. I loved to live.  I deserve to live.  I can fill it coming back again.   I can feel my life changing.  Do you not feel the shift?  It’s KA. I want this. I need this.  I will do all these things and more!   

William Bryan Burkle you can do this!

No, that isn’t me.  That was a different man, and a different life. 

Then who are you the Blackfish?  The Kid?  The Betrayer of Hope?

I am all of those, and I am me and only me.

Then Who ARE YOU?

The Black Reaper and you?

Same Person I have always been.  Before and after these principles were cast.  Before this new path emerge.  Before you realized you want life. 

And who is that?

Billy b

And we are?

One and the same. 

And what is that?

Risen from the ashes of a broken life… We are one and that one is a dreamer, who is honest, free, fearless and lives to get Radical.

Then it is True, I have Risen!