All Apologies...

“I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault
I'll take all the blame
Aqua sea foam shame
Sunburn with freezer burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy”

Nirvana - All Apologies

We are the people we are because of our life experiences.  Each experience shapes us.  It drives us.  It sets us into motion.  Life is nothing more than a series of chain reactions.  I am a man who is dancing with demons.  I am not talking about the Dean and Sammy way with the rock salt, the special tattoos, and a few exorcisms.  No, the demons I continue to dance with are not from any other hell but my own private hell.  They also can’t just be warded off because they are with me, they are me, and they are always in my head!

I am the asshole.  When I say that, I really mean it.  I have talked on here for months about not wanting to be the monster at the end of the book.  However, what happens when you were a monster mid-way through it.  What happens when you were a monster in your adolescents?  What if you were a monster as recent as a year ago?  Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. 

If writing is my gift, then my wicked tongue is my curse.  If I thought I was a natural born hazer in college, I was wrong, I was a natural born hazer my entire life.  I am not trying to be clever when I refer to myself as a Mental Terrorist.  I would find the right string to pull and I would pull it until the whole fucking thing unraveled.   

Sometimes you should be careful.  Sometimes you should actually stop and think before you plunge head first into the rabbit whole.  I always wanted to know why I hated myself.  Perhaps this is why?  Perhaps the more I scrap away and try to remember, the more I don’t want to. 

The cruelty is gone.  The bully is gone.  However, some of his tendencies remain.  The black dread remains.   Moods wings remain.  Instead of making fun and verbal assaults silence is my weapon.  Grumpiness is my weapon.  The simple ability to have a friend one day and remove them the next, the fact that I am used to doing it, is a sign that perhaps we aren’t that far gone. 

I know why I have a lot of these feelings.  I do.  That is my cross and I will bare it.   The list of insecurities I feel is long and genuine.  I could stay here stuck in this moment and persecute myself for how I have acted.  I could stay in the prison of my mind.  More importantly I can stay in the one I have made out of my body.  The one that can’t do what normal people due because I am simply too far gone from normal and I know I made myself that way.  The disfigurement to my body and mind are my own doing. 

Look at me.  Really look at me and tell me I am wrong.  460 pounds and I still make the same mistakes over and over again.  Tell me my exile isn’t in my own mind.  Tell me that I don’t feel like a freak because of what I have turned myself into.  Tell me that you take the kid who saw the monster and bully he was and then add on to it depression and anxiety and tell me that I have not boxed myself in.  Tell me that I haven’t hidden myself form the world and from a good life?  I have alienated people and made enemies and all because I really don’t like the kid I used to be and the man I have become. 

So what is there left?  What else can I do?  I can say I am sorry.  I am sorry to those people I bullied verbally growing up.  I am so sorry.  I was insecure and broken.  I was unhappy and angry.  I hated myself so I took it out on you.  Much like the person I am today is a mirror refraction of the person I once was, that person I was then is also just a glimpse, something caught out of the corner of an eye.  However, he was very real.  So, all I can do is say I am sorry.

I own who I was.  I own what I did.  It is mine to own.  Every day for the rest of my life I will try to atone for sins of that bully.  Like anything in life you have to learn to live with your mistakes.  Most of all you have to learn from them.  I think I have learned a lot form my mistakes.  I also know saying sorry isn’t good enough.  It doesn’t change the past.  Nothing can, and I refuse to live in that past. I refuse to stay in it and punish myself anymore for it.  I just can’t do it anymore.  The man is not the boy.  The past is not the present. 

The apology, and all apologies that I owe, is real though.  It is genuine and from my heart.  Whether I wanted to say it, needed to say, or had to I am not sure, but I am sorry.  I am sorry and while I will continue to dance with these demons, I also know it is pushing me to be the man I am meant to be.  Pushing to the life I want and need to live.    

I have learned a lot about myself in the last 9 months.  Even more in the last 96 hours, I am always glad to learn more about me.  I have to know it. I have to understand how we fell so far so that we can climb even higher than I ever was before.  My heart is good.  It is of gold.  My life is an open book for the entire world to read.  I want to be the best Billy b I can be.  To do that I have to know where I was and who I was.  I of all people love a good redemption story.  I know that there is hope for me yet J  I will stand and be true.  And the Tower is closer…

...a beautiful life...

He is in the car.  He is driving south on 680.  He is fat.  Really fat!  He is four-hundred plus pounds of humanity.  He smells.  He reeks of perspiration.  Of course he does.  Why wouldn’t he?  After he is pushing himself beyond his limits and has been for 9 weeks.  He has started to walk again but not only that he has started to push again.  He started to push to the limits of his ability.  He started to walk with purpose.  So yes he stinks and reeks of sweat and he loves it because it is his own private reward.  The hard earned reward from a job well done.  Some might call it sick.  Most won’t understand it.  It’s the deranged needs of the athlete. 

He drives home looking at the California sun as it starts to disappear over the horizon.  It is late.  It’s been late every night lately.  It’s late because he stays.  It’s late because he has re-invested in himself.  Not in his job.  Not in his working out.  Not in his food.  No he has re-invested in his life. 

He still has issues, lots and lots of issues.  Perhaps, more now than when his day started, some would say Si, some would say no.  For the first time in a long time he doesn’t care about issues, his, yours, others. 

His eyes are on the verge of bursting.  He thinks finally, finally, the levee will break.  His soul will be cleansed, would it not? 

He watches the sun as he drives.  He looks around and god the world is beautiful.  It is so beautiful.  The cotton candy colored sky enamors him.  Hit heart is beating and he feels alive.  Not because for the second night in a row he was around a 19 minute mile.  Not because tonight when he was bone weary tired and damn near didn’t walk he pushed his body really hard for 40 minutes.  Not just because he was over 3 miles per hour tonight.  No.  Not just because he is better now than a week ago.  Not because he is bringing his times down.  No.

The smile that breaks across his face isn’t just because he is moving again.  It is because he realizes his life, though it’s not what it was before.  He is a different man.  He has grown.  His heart has grown.  His mind had grown. 

Sue has been telling him for a long time that he needs to expand his mind.  That his view of love and acceptance has to expand beyond a narrow box, that only a very few things can fit into.  He can’t judge his self-worth and value can’t be judged by those who rejected him.  No, because there are too many people who love him to narrow his view and put blinders on. 

He tosses his head back and laughs.  The laugh is genuine.  He laughs loud and hard.  Not only do a lot of people love him, but he likes himself.  He really does like himself.  It’s been a long time since he could say that.    It’s been so long.   Since said it and meant it.  The tears tease that they are falling but they don’t.  It doesn’t matter though.  It is ok. 

He knows that he isn’t perfect.  He knows he is far from it.  He starts to see why he has made himself a prisoner in his own mind.  He was mean.  He was a bully.  He was cruel.  Was it him, or was it his circumstance?  It doesn’t matter.  He will own it.  He has too.  He does. 

It is ok.  It will be ok.  He knows he has fallen from grace.  It’s evident every time he looks in a mirror.  How long though does one have to stay in prison?  How much more time does he have to serve?  None is the only acceptable answer.  Thirty-eight years is to long of a sentence to serve for things that happened a lifetime ago.  For things that a boy did before he was a man, he hates himself for being so mean and being a jackass as a kid. 

He hasn’t fully forgiven himself.   No not yet, but he is.  The man he has become is giving.  He can be sweet. He can still be a shit.  He is still hampered by his own demons.  However, the fogs lift faster.  The bitterness isn’t as nasty as it once was.  The acrid taste of bitterness is not so bad in his mouth.  He wishes he didn’t know what he knows now, but knows he has to know it.  It will continue to shape the man he is becoming and wants to be.

He is surrounded by so many good people.  His core team at work, the four of them is a tight bunch.  They are good people and they love him.  He is their leader, maybe not the best leader, but a good one.  He has friends that would go with him and are going with him to the very end, to the very fires of Mordor.  The people who want to be in his life are actually in his life and that is a good thing to know where you stand.  The energy he surrounds himself is good.  Positive feelings and love surround him.  He knows he is lucky.  He knows he is so lucky to have another shot at making a good life. 

He can’t help but smile.  Even with the bad, he knows that there is good in the world.  He knows that today is a good day.  He knows that hope is becoming a way of life and peace is no longer just a dream.  He is on the road to recovery.  He watches the sun again disappearing and tears or no tears, he is better today than he was yesterday.  Tomorrow will even be better he knows that now.  He is on the path of the BEAM.  He sees the tower off in the distance.  It is still far away, but he sees it and he knows he is in the game.  He smiles and laughs out loud again because he knows and appreciates that he actually has a beautiful life!

Victim?

“There are times in my life when I have been medicine for some while poison for others. I used to think I was a victim of my story until I realized the truth; that I am the creator of my story. I choose what type of person I will be and what type of impact I will leave on others. I will never choose the destructive path of self and outward victimization again.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“There is a fine line between compassion and a victim mentality. Compassion though is a healing force and comes from a place of kindness towards yourself. Playing the victim is a toxic waste of time that not only repels other people, but also robs the victim of ever knowing true happiness.” 
― Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing

“I am not a victim. No matter what I have been through, I'm still here. I have a history of victory.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

 

I teeter on the edge of becoming the victim in my own life.  To have the poor me mentality and placing the blame of a broken life onto others, instead of standing up and accepting who and what I am. Until today I had no idea who Steve Maraboli was, but I will read his book because I think I could learn from it as I don’t want to be a victim.  I don’t want my story to turn into a poor me story, and I certainly don’t want to people to think this blog is about whining and placing blame.  It never has been.  It is about being open.  It is about being an open book for the entire world to read.  It is tell my struggle against the demons I am possessed by: gluttony, envy, and wrath.  It is about overcoming a lift time of not feeling like I am good enough.  It is about a boy growing up and becoming not only a man but the man he is supposed to be.

My story is simple.  I am broken.  I want to be fixed.  I am fat, but not because I am an undisciplined, lazy, piece of shit, 9 half marathon and 12 tri’s would say otherwise.  50+ hour work weeks would suggest that lazy is not the issue.  The issue is pulling it all together.  When I work out hard I eat a shit load.  When I eat well, I don’t work out.  Where is the healthy balance between the two?

The reason I love Sue, is because simply put she, like me, wants me to be the best Billy b that I can be.  She doesn’t let me get away with telling stories, or making jokes about myself, or even talking about stuff that doesn’t matter.  She brings it back to the point.  Therefore when I hear Sue telling me to not become the victim, I stop and I listen.  I have to listen when she says don’t you dare start the victim mentality shit.

With red rimmed eyes she looked at me hard and said Bill think about what you are saying.  You want to hate all these people?  You want to hurt them, not physically but emotionally, because you were hurt.  Is that really who you want to be?  What you want to be remembered as?  Because you have sat in here week after week and said you wanted to be the best person you could be.  That isn’t a petty person.  Do you really want to hurt others the way you have felt hurt?

She told me my pain was valid.  However, becoming a victim of that pain and wanting to play the revenge card isn’t the best you could be.

I asked her then, just what in the fuck am I supposed to do then.  She said don’t become the victim.  Learn and grow from your experiences because they make you who you are.  Let’s focus on how we let go of the anger.  How we let go of the hate and how we get you healthy and happy.  That is what you want.  She also said she would push me.  I would ask her to never stop pushing me.  Sometimes we all need a little push from the ones we love.  To break through the boundaries that limits us.

I am not sure Sue has ever seen me so animated. For the first time I wasn’t slouched back on her couch but sitting on the edge of it.  Waiving my arms around and connected to the conversation.  I was hearing her.  She pushed and the finally after 8 years of pushing I think we started to break through.

I won’t let myself be a victim in my life.  I won’t let others have the power they held over me anymore.  I won’t let people think they know what I want or wanted anymore because quite honestly if they have never asked then they don’t really know. 

I will continue to push myself because like Master Krug told me last September the Billy b I am today is not an acceptable one.  Being petty and taking revenge is not allowed.  Playing into others plots is foolish.  At this point in my life I can sit here and say the one thing that matters to me the most is this Blog.  Witting everyday has changed me.  It has inspired me.  It has made me want to be more than I ever thought I could. 

I am not the best Billy b I can be right now, but I know he is out there, on the horizon.  He is within reach.  The boy, who always thought of himself as Ka-Mai, is now taking his life into his hands.  He is dealing with his pain and each day he walks a little further away from it.  He realizes his life isn’t broken anymore.  He will no longer be destiny’s fool.  Too much water has passed under the bridge.

I won’t let myself become a victim of my own mind anymore.  I won’t be a martyr.  I will focus my efforts are for me to live the life I want to live.  I will stick to my walk plan, which by the way is going fucking great!  The last two nights I have walked and walked hard even though I was exhausted and tonight will be no different.  I will get in the pool when I can.  Most of all I will listen to Tyson and follow his program.  I will be the person I want to be.  I am committed to this for the long hall.  This won’t happen overnight and yes, I will probably cry on here again about my hurt.  I might say the same thing over and over again for a while.  No matter what I will fight and push. I won’t let myself be complacent, and I know Sue won’t either.

Text to Sue after leaving her office…

“I am better than I wasJ” Billy b

“Yes but I’m still going to push you to be better than you are.” – Dr. Sue

“You know that’s right!” Billy b

And I do know that is right.  I know she is on my team.  She is an amazing women and I am very, very lucky to have her in my life.  She is my angel, and if loving your therapist is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.  I will do this…

Vote: Do I send or not Send - Gabe said it was whiny - Proper Parking Lot Etiquette for EV's

Hi Jenee:

Can you please share this with the rest of the people who charge if you think it is appropriate?  For the third time in the three times in the last two weeks my car has been unplugged and the charger door has been closed so that no one else could plug me in.  Today, whoever did it, didn’t even plug their car in, they actually put the charger back up on the charging station.  I am not sure who I wronged in the charging spots, but apparently I did wrong someone and I am sorry for that.  I try to practice good parking lot etiquette myself, but sometimes, I have no idea if a car has been charged or not, so if I take the plug to early, what can I do, other than apologize as I am doing here.   I plugged my car in at noon today.  By 2 it was unplugged and not charging.  I stormed down stars to unplug another car and plug mine in because I was frustrated;  as I got ready to unplug another car that wasn’t there as I started my accent down from the 5^th floor, I had a change of heart and realized I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do the same thing to another EV car.  I got really lucky because the car next to me was charged by then and I got to plug in.  I am paranoid and checking my phone app every ten minutes to make sure my car doesn’t get unplugged again.  Yes, my car has a gas aspect, but I didn’t by an electric car with a 40 mile range to commute 39 miles each way to use gas.  Just being honest here, I didn’t.  When I looked out at those spots last January 2013 there was hardly anyone there using them? 

Proper Parking Lot Etiquette for EV:

What is Proper Parking Lot Etiquette for EV you ask? It is common courtesy nothing else. If a car is plugged in you check the charging station to see if it is still charging or not.  If it is still charging you walk away and wait your turn.  If you pull into a spot and there are three other cars there and one car is fully charged, one has its charging door open, and a third is still charging proper etiquette would be to park the other car in that has the open door and if they are fully charged.  If they are, then you can plug your car in.  Also, you always, always follow the golden rule “Thou shalt not unplug a car that is charging!”  We all want to get charged.  We all paid a lot of good money to get charged.  We all need to be using a little patience and wait our turn to charge.  In case the Golden Rule was not clear “Thou shalt not unplug a car that is charging!”  It is really just common courtesy, nothing more nothing less.  There is enough power to go around; there are enough hours in the day for us all to get charged.  There should never be a question if a car is charged or not either.  It says it on the charging station.  Right there in plain sight for the entire world to read.  Then you simply just follow the chord to the fully charged car and boom, you can plug your car in.  I have to be honest, if you can’t figure that out, then I really don’t want to be on the road with you. 

Great Parking Lot Etiquette for EV is can be broken down into F.I.F.O.  The first car in a charging spot gets to charge and then they can be the first out.   That is not that hard. I mean really. Practice some common courtesy, and follow good and safe Parking Lot Etiquette for EV’s.

Thanks,

Billy b

A Face on the Water

“Time is a face on the water”—this is a proverb from Mejis

King said it, of course he did, who else would have said it?  I think most of the stuff I write or talk about comes from King in one way or another.  The other thing is I look to King’s words as art, and his words, like lyrics to your favorite song are always open for interpretation.  That is the nature of art. 

It’s funny when I talked to a friend right after college about writing and storytelling or as King would say Tale Spinning, he asked what the meaning behind something I was telling him about was.  I said why does it have to mean anything, why can’t it just be for good story telling.  I never forgot that conversation and it actually turned me away from wanting to write.  I felt like I wasn’t smart enough or talented enough to write something that had a double meaning. 

 Fifteen years later I wonder if I ever knew myself at all back then.  Gabe a co-worker, or do I dare call him friend, I am not sure yet, told me the other day that I was duplicitous.  That he would never think of writing something and be speaking to two or three people at the same time and it meaning two different things when thinking about readers.  I marveled at that.  That I could actually write with some type of agenda.  He said he would have never thought about that.  You write things and let others figure out what you mean or don’t.  If they are left thinking about it then perhaps just perhaps you actually caught there attention.

When I read “time is a face on water” I have stopped trying to understand what King meant.  In my humble opine I don’t think it matters what he meant.  What matters is what the words mean to me.  His book is art and therefore it up for interpretation.  Just like what I write here is up for interpretation.  Some people might think I am just a spoiled brat who is really insecure therefore, I hide behind my weight.   Some people might think he is just talking to talk.  He isn’t really trying.  Others might think that I am just a cry baby.  I know there certainly are people out there that still think my issue is still as simple as just don’t eat bad.  If it were only that simple then I would have done it.  The truth is I am just being here telling my story the best that I can.

Searching through some old Pictures for another blog, I came across that attached picture.  It was me with a beer and cigarette at the age of 17.  It was the class of 1993 Senior Prom.  The girl in the picture was an old friend.  The picture tells the story of my life back then.  I was not an athlete in high school, I drank beer, and I smoked.  

17 was a good age for me.  It was right before the mind started to break.  It was before my senior year and going to bed at 7 p.m.  It was before I was tired of all my “friends” showing up every day, all day at my parents’ house and never leaving. 

I look at that picture and all I can think is “Time is a face on the water”.  It changes and ripples with each pebble tossed or when the wind blows.  We change and ripple the same way.  I think that is what that saying means to me is our lives are in a constant state of fluctuation.  That nothing lasts forever and if you blink you will miss something wonderful. 

I can’t believe it has been a life time since that picture.  I can’t believe I am still dealing with the base issues now that I dealt with as an insecure teenager.  I am still trying to free my mind.  No matter how I say this it is going to sound bad.  I am still fat.  However, I look at that picture and I don’t really look very fat. I am not trying to whine here.  Really, I swear that I am not.  I am not looking to pass blame or anything like that but all I see is a picture of a kid who was having fun and then got terribly lost in life. 

Time is a face on the water and the wars go on and the years go and all we can do is ask what has happened to the time.  I am not who I wanted to be when I was 17, not even a little bit, not even close.  However, I also can’t sit here and say the time has been wasted.  No, not that.  I firmly believe that time can never be wasted. 

You can’t cry over spilt milk.  I can’t change the wasted time.  Hell I can’t even go back and tell that kid to be who he wants to be.  Fuck them all, they don’t matter.  Believe in yourself.  Do what is right by you.  Stand and be true.  Time is a face on the water and the world moves on and the only thing you are left with is you. 

I can’t go back and change the time between when the photograph was taken.  Everything from then till now is my hero’s trial.  It is my test to see if I can get to where I want to go.  Can I be who I was born to be?  Will I rise to the occasion?

The truth is I am not sure how much of the past I would change if I could.  Just like I can’t look to hold on to time that is gone.  We all have our regrets.  We all have the diet we should have stuck to.  Or that run we should have gone on.  However, I think it all works out the way it is supposed to in the end. 

I think the time is a face on the water is a concept I will have revisit.  I feel like there is so much more that I should be saying.  However, work and life are getting in the way.   I see who I was, and what I can be again.  I will be a better more mature version of that handsome kid in the picture.  I will also be a person who will say what he needs to say and do what he needs to do.  Because unlike that kid, this man knows that time is a face on the water.  This knows that you can’t be given everything that sometimes you have to work for what you want.    

What I will take from this is not regret and yearning for who I was but excite and hope for who I will be once again.  Things are going well for me.  I know that.  I am growing each and every day.  Working on putting my mind right.  Working to put my life right and knowing right now that I will reach my goals.  That I will be who I want to be and that person is the one I am.  See what I didn’t know then that I know now.  Is that I am OK.  That I am OK and living the life I want to live.  I am happy in this moment in time.  I will make the best out of the situations I am dealing with.  One that knows the only reason is it is a long fall from grace is that we have so much to learn on the way back up. 

This may or may not have made any sense.  My points might not get across.  However, it will fade like a ripple on calm water.  Just like reflection you see in the water that washing away in the waves.  Just like time drifts away.  I am going to walk now… Long days and Pleasant nights…

  

I'm learning to walk again I believe I've waited long enough Where do I begin?

“I'm learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
I'm learning to talk again
Can't you see I've waited long enough?
Where do I begin?”

Walk, Foo Fighters

Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!

Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!

Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!

You don't really hear this.  Not really, you feel it.  It's like
Someone is throwing whippersnappers at your feet.  You can here the
"Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!"

Because you have your head phones in and David Grohl is screaming his
His sweet lyrics are screaming in your ears saying something about learning to talk again and not wanting to die or something of this nature.   So your can't possibly hear the "Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!"

However you do feel it.  It's your right knee and it hurts.   However you can at lead your weight on to today and you know it's critical to get out and walk before Rachel gets home and it poop time.  It's critical to keep walking.   The 10k was a rough event on the body yesterday. However you did it.  All of last night you hobbled around the house and numbed the pain in the right knees with ice and four Advil.

Perhaps Rachel was right you body just wasn't ready for six miles yet, but you don't want to admit that.  Even know the knee screams it at you "Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!"

However you walk on, no matter what, you walk.  Because that what we need to do.  16-minute miles aren't going to happen without hard work and sitting around watching Psych.

If the knee wasn't bad enough, there is the pinching in the right shoe.  The quarter size blood blister is reminding you why you never go out for mileage without you sports shield and although your thoroughly lubed right now, you were yesterday and now the rubbing blood blister reminds you with each step why you use roll on Astor glide on each foot before you walk.  It's slicker than snot and prevents blistering.  You were sloppy yesterday.  You weren’t prepared when you went out.  You left without electrolytes.  You left without lubing up.  You have forgotten he face of your father.  You have forgotten the face of you walk coach.  She would not be pleased reading that you basically when out with a bag a water, a fuck we can do this attitude, and no salt or electrolytes.  Roughly 7 years of training forgotten.

Then there is today. Trying to ignore the creaking if you can for as long as you can.  Ignore the blood blister, because we need to walk.  You want to go fast, but you also try to tell yourself to be balanced.  You are walking.  You body is healthy enough to move so just move and be happy.   Don’t push yourself to hard.   Give it time.  You are hoping to move around like you did 100 lbs. ago.  That isn’t going to happen.

You’re the “Mountain” that walks.  Be satisfied with the movement.  Slow down, because when you slow down your foot don’t hurt, you knee doesn’t pop.  Move.  Moving is winning.  However, you mind can’t accept that.

The day after long walks back with you coach were always recovery walks.  So that meant walk good clip.  Not race speeds, not balls out, remember that, remember and be true.

It is a struggle like this every time I walk.  Trying to balance between pushing just hard enough and not to hard.  The issue is whenever I am not moving as briskly as I can or can’t I feel like I am not trying hard enough.  The old enemies start up again.  The voices saying you are lazy.  They say you are sauntering and out for a fucking joy walk.  That you aren’t really trying.  That you don’t want to get better and you just want to complain about not getting what you want.

Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!

Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!

Crickkkkkkkkkk, snappppp, bannnnggg, POP!

Doesn’t sound like a fucking joy walk to me.  Not at all, so you try to balance pushing and pain.  It is a fine balance.

You get home, you refill you camelbak and where it while you blog so you can keep injecting water.  You finished, you walk was GOOD.  It wasn’t good because it was fast or slow.  It wasn’t good because you went so for or for so long.  No it is good because you walked.  You walked and at the end of the day that is what matter.  Each day you put yourself out there and move one foot in front of the other.  You try your hardest to get better.  You haven’t really forgotten the fact of your father; you walk coach, or anyone else.  You just keep on being you.  Trying to be the best version of you can be.  So you walk.  You get ready to go for a swim.  It will be your fifth 2-a-day of the month.  You want to hang you head because are you sick of making goals you can’t keep on this fucking blog.  Then you say no, I am not going to do that. 5 2-a-days aren’t to fucking shabby is it?

The truth is you have to keep things in perspective.  You are 460 lbs. and you trying to walk a half marathon.  You are trying to overcome so many things.  We have written the list so many times.  There is no need to write it again.  Addiction being, finding acceptance in others, and freeing my mind was the darkness are the biggest.  We win some battles and we lose some.  However, we are better.  We are good right now.  We are moving forward and isn’t that all we can ask for?

We were broken, but we are starting to fix things.  That is what matters.  In the end, refocus, recommit, relearn, and accept me.  That is what I have to do.

And for any of you who didn’t believe I would sit here and write while camelbaking the fuck up.  Check this out..

My first 10k (6 miles) in a while

Wow... I forgot how much it could take to walk 6 miles.  I am beat, my feet hurt, my camel back rubbed my arms raw.

However, I feel fucking AWESOME!

That is the truth.

I feel good....

The final times are below.  I was walking about 2.9 mph.

If you pull that across 13.1 miles, I am going to fail miserably at Star Wars half marathon,however, we have 200 days and we are thru half the distance.

Since I started walking 8 weeks ago, I have walked 60 miles, for a total 22 hours.  That is pretty fucking good if I say so myself.

I have done at least two walks per my program every saturday for the last three saturdays.  I'll take it.

Ill fucking take it...

shit have to go order some sports shield now before I forget...

Great walk today... we will get better and keep walking!!!!

• 6.0mi
  Distance
• 2:04:14

Never underestimate the power of my anger…

Never underestimate the power of my anger…

Last night might have just been a one off.  It might have meant nothing at all.  However, I think I might have measured my rage last night.  I can’t sit here and tell you one reason I am angry.  There are so many things that I have probably forgotten most of them.  

I know that I manifest anger with the best of them…  I think each and every one of these is spot on except aggression.  I normally don’t yell, accept for at myself.  I don’t threaten.  I also don’t lay my hands on anyone but myself.  I found these on WebMD and the link is shared below. 

·         Passive aggressive. The angry person quietly withholds whatever the object of the anger wants. If the boss blames her, she stalls on a project. If a spouse wants to talk, he clams up.

·         Sarcasm. The angry person may escalate to sarcasm. If the other person complains, the angry person may turn it around: "Well, you can sure take a joke."

·         Cold anger. This is the silent treatment or minimal response. Maybe the angry person leaves the room.

·         Hostility. This is the toe-tapper in line, the feisty customer, or the time bomb waiting to go off at dinner.

·         Aggression. This is the stage where the angry person acts out physically, yelling, threatening, or laying on hands.

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/anger-obics-can-make-anger-work-out

Anyway, I went out to walk last night.  I had a 25 minute walk to do.  I forgot my change of clothes, but I knew that I had to walk.  No matter what I needed that Walk.  I yearned for that walk.  So, fully clothed in my business casual attire and my work shoes, I walked. 

I walked angry.  That monkey on my back was in rare form and he was cackling and laughing in my ear like a loon.  I realized for the first time that the monkey on my back had changed.  It was no longer a gaunt thin version of me.  No, the monkey on my back was none other than Mr. J himself, the Joker and at first this totally creped me out.  Then I was like just go with it, if he makes you walk harder and faster.  My average mile per minute has been just over 20 minutes.   Last night it was 19:50.  It was a great start to week 8. 

Tyson was over last night before he left for his fight.  Still having people over to watch the fight this weekend: “This Saturday is #WSOF10! Our second main card fight on NBC Sports Network will be Tyson Griffin vs Luiz Firmino!” well, if people is the Beaver.  He brought me some really good food for the next 7 days.  However, more importantly we held long palaver and it made sense to me.

At some point in time you have to let go. You can’t be so damn hard on yourself and mad at yourself all the time.  You have to put yourself in the best place for success.  You have to fight for what you want.  He told me he could tell I was better.  I actually agree with him.  I am better and I am being too hard on myself.  I have to stop living in the fog.  I have to be thankful for what I have and who I am.  That is all that matters right now.  All that matters is I get up each and move a little closer to the tower.  I don’t want to have to rely on pure rage to get me across any finish line.  I want to make myself better than that.  I am.  I will.  Each day, one step at a time, we will walk a little further.  Each day we will focus on the vision of who we want to be in our mind.  I want to be the complete person, who is well rounded and more than any anger.  It takes time though.  The obsessive mind has passed for now.  Today is a new day, with new hope.  The same dream remains, the same dream always remains.  I am standing on a beach, with the wind in my hair.  Water washes over my feet.  I turn to her and smile and she smiles back, then I turn back to the water and I see my feet.  How long could I not see them?  I look at the marble sculpted legs that could carry a 400 lbs. person up a hill on a bike because they used to do just that.  The black tri-shorts fit perfect.  I see my tummy muscles and my belly button.  The tattoo on my chest, I am not a man, but a reaper, the reaper, the Black Reaper.  I pull my goggles and run into the water and dive in and I start my stroke, my long, graceful stroke and I know that the Tower is closer… 

the obsessive mind

“Well i'd like to think i'm the mess you'd wear with pride.
Like some empty dress on the bed you've layed out for tonight.
Maybe i'll tell you sometime.

Time. Sometime.

And you were right.

Right.

You were right
Outside by your doorstep
In a worn out suit and tie
I'll wait 
For you to come down
Where you'll find me
Where we'll shine

Oh”

 

"I Go To The Barn Because I Like The", Band of Horses

 

The song has been stuck in my head for days.   I down loaded it from iTunes and now I play it over and over searching for the meaning. 

There will always be days like today when you have an obsessive mind.  The obsessive mind is an unfocused mind. It is a mind that is allowed to run free wild and not held into check.  My mind is obsessive.  It always has been.  The obsessions are so powerful they boarder on the outskirts of madness. 

See the obsessive mind doesn’t rest.  There is madness there that does not sleep.  One just can’t tell the obsessive mind that you are being ridiculous.  That you are out of your fucking element and that you are creating paranoia.  No, you can’t flip a switch and ask the obsessive mind to turn off. 

My mind, my beautiful fucking mind, is it a gift or a curse.  Can it be that which makes me creative also makes me insane? 

I sit here sick to my stomach.  Not from a binge.  No the days of the binge appear for the timing being to be gone.  No, because a theory I am building in my mind.  The biggest problem with the obsessive mind is that it loves to string bites and pieces of information together.  Regardless of they truly fit or not.

The worst part is that the obsessive mind is strong than any reasoning we may or may not have.  When the obsessive mind kicks in, we forget everything.  We take fragments from conversations.  Assume our “friends” lie to us.  After all, the obsessive mind is a paranoid mind.  The paranoid mind lives by a single solitary motto “Trust No One”. 

The obsessive mind turns it back on friends and loved ones and only focuses on what might be or could be.  It is perfectly irrational. 

It helps explain why you could be so easily forgotten.  It can explain why they run.  It can explain why you hide behind your fat and also use your fat so you can’t be missed. 

Was it all a lie?  Was it the great lie of our life?  Your mind thinks so because it doesn’t’ know what else to think.  I mean after all you are KA-Mail.  You are destiny’s fool.  You’re a punch line of a joke and you let people do that to you.  The world is black today.

You are sick.  You want to cry.  You know how you lost and who you lost to.  You can’t deal with it, but you must.  For the obsessive mind will continue on.  It is like the Song of a Dead Man, which will always remain; it will always remind you of your heartache, and your pain.  It is just like a cancer, that slow but steadily eats you away.  That is just the nature of the Dead Man and his prey.

How can you beat the obsessive mind?  Can you?  How do you stop the obsession from consuming you?  How do you stand and be true to your KA? 

How do you come back from the very edge of madness?  How do you beat off insanity? 

You realize that the monkey on your back is winning today.  You understand on the days like today why you feel so unlovable and anyone who ever said the words to you probably lied.  After all aren’t you just the product of being forgotten?  Aren’t you just the product of the obsessive mind?  It’s in the moments you know why you are alone.  Why you’re better off alone.  Why sleep always calls you.  Why sleep is the only thing you truly want.

You re-read what you have written and you wonder how you will ever see light again.  You wonder if you deserve to.  You wonder if you can somehow move from the black and into the light.

You realize how fragile your psyche is.  Why if truths where known would you not crumble like a cookie?  For are all your strengths are you just really fucking weak.  I hate my weakness.  I fucking hate it.  I hate that I am so fucking sensitive.  I hate it.   I hate the obsessive mind.  I hate it, I hate it, and I can’t take it anymore.  You want to scream, but you can’t.  All you can do is sit here thinking bad thoughts.  Thinking about what a long fucking fall from grace is.  Where am I?  What am I?  Who am I? 

Then again, you weather the storm because as fast as the obsession come, they leave even quicker now because you know exactly what you are dealing with.  You write it out.  You post it.  You make your feelings real.  You deal, with them, you log them to talk to Sue.  You do it, and you hope you can cry and cleanse your soul.  Because you know it is time to say good bye to what you knew and move on to what is to come.  Because not matter what, you can’t go back.  You can never go back.  You can only go on.  You can only keep on keeping on.  And stand up and be true.  That is all you can do.  That is all you can ever do.  You will walk alone next to the black muddy river and listen to the ripples as they moan.  Because you can’t stand outside and wait forever because we don’t have forever, we only have a short period of time.  We are forced to make the best of the time that is given to us.  And we have to move on from this time and place, because there are other worlds than these.  So we look to our walk tonight, for it is our salvation and we listen to the song and try to figure out its hidden meaning and what I means to us, and we refuse to let the obsessive mind win too much.