I am a nervous flyer. I always have been. Well, that isn't true is it? I was scared my first flight. Until we started down the run way and then I remember breaking out into laughter. After, that I was some where in the middle. However, as I have grown older, I have become more and more paranoid about getting tot he airport and getting through security. The more paranoid I get the earlier I get to the airport. It was so bad that last night in holding palaver with Rachel and El Beav, Rachel joked about my flight today that she was surprised I was going to the airport the night before and El Beav just said he was happy he wasn't picking me up at 4 a.m. this time around to take me. They got a good laugh out of it. However, I spent the entire night stressing over waking up on time, packing my cpap, and wondering if Southwest was going to give me the same shit about the extra seat as when I hit Rock Bottom back on 4/20/12, it is with almost every time I fly now:
Prologue: lost in transition: the story of a fat triathlete and his double down at pacific grove
Rock bottom
You never know when it will hit. Six months ago I was celebrating the greatest triumph of my life. Now I'm celebrating my worst. On a weekend that was suppose to be great. Now no matter what will be forever tarnished.
Look, I have been seeing this coming for awhile. It's no surprise. My body is telling me that something has to change.
I'm uncomfortable. My stomach hurts, my back hurts, my hips hurt. Everyday is gas pains and peeing after every sip of water. Things have to change. I have to become the
Man I am suppose to be.
Rock bottom came at the airport, while checking into a flight to go to Vegas for a triathlon I'm not going to do. Rock bottom came in the form of a worker for southwest airlines very politely informing me that for the safety of the other passengers and crew it would be best if I bought an extra seat. That I didnt look like I would be able to get out of my seat without assistance.
I wanted to scream "Hey, fuck you, I'm a triathlete.". I doubled down at pacific grove last year. However, that was six months ago. 40 lbs ago. A different life. A more comfortable life. A life worth living.
Some where in the time since the greatest moment of my life and rock bottom, I lost my way. I gave up on my life and goals. Seemingly my tower was gone forever. Or atleast that is how I've been living my life.
Smoking cigarettes? Eating fast food three or four times a week? Eating sweets? Eating bags of BBQ chips at a time. All of this while paying for weight watchers.
You know all this is bad. But what about not wanting to shower because it is hard work to wash your massive body. When things that are as natural as going to the bathroom become choirs because of how much work it is on your body.
The guy at the southwest counter isn't wrong. I do have trouble getting around. I hurt. I'm in pain.
Mom an Dad are pushing for surgery. My doctor agrees. I'm hesitant. It's not what I really want. However, it might be what I need. May 2012 I go for a consultation.
What do I want? I want to lose weight by training w TNT and eating whatever I want. That doesn't work though. We have been down that road before. I fail.
Weight Watchers? There was a summer I had so much success. I believed in me. I drank the kool-aide.
"but it hasn't worked since you joined up back in August?"
The question is it hasn't or I haven't?
What happened to me? When did I quit? When did my life become so meaningless to me?
I don't know.
What comes next?
Well, I make a choice. I live or a die. I've been dead twice. I don't love it. I'm sort of dead now. I go through the motions of life. So maybe I have died again. On my third death. I don't want death. I don't need it. I want life. I choose life.
I will go to my appointment in early May.
I will get back on my points.
need to finish to finish at some later point, not sure if this is going any where (author note 4/20/12)
The man who wrote that was another man, living another life. Rock Bottom was a long time ago. The 40 lbs are gone. I have spend the better part of 2013 and 2014 going into the rabbit hole and trying to find answers. In November of 2014 I started doing something about it. No more talking. No waiting idly by hoping that someone else would come fix me. No, I took charge. I had to much momentum to loose. I was charging forward and not looking back. Then there was Hawaii and finding my old friend sugar. Little by little it crept back into my life. Since Hawaii I have only been about 50 - 50 on my eating. I eat the fast food again, not much, not like I was in March/April of 2012 or even back in late 2014. However, I do it from time to time and all this is thrown into my face each and every time I go to the airport to fly. Each time I have two buy two seats so that I don't interfere with the safety of others.
However, if anything the last week of April and the first weekend of May gave us hope. Hope that we could be successful away from the house. That we could be in charge of our own destiny. WE packed four sets of gym clothes for the four workouts we promised to do while here. Then when we get back home there is the whole food challenge. I am surrounded by hope. I read the first entry from my blog last year when I was in vegas and it was called Fat and Loathing.
I toyed with all kinds of titles and things to say this year. However, the only one that seems to fit is this... "Fit and Living in Las Vegas" Because it is representative of who I am now. Who I have become. It is time to leave the passive aggressive mid-western behind. It is time to become that man I was born to be. I am not going to hold back or hide anymore. I am going to say what I think and when I think and more importantly everything I do from this point forward is for the tower. For the goal and for the life I want to have, not the one I have accepted which was less than what I deserved.
I had a funny story to tell about going through security. Well funny for anyone who wasn't me that is. I mean how often do you get to see a man walk into the security booth and when he raises his hands over his head, his pants that are two big b/c they were bought some thirty pounds ago drop straight to your ankles? Ya, you heard me right. My pants dropped passed knees as I stood there with hands up, over head. I told the TSA people that was going to happen, but they didn't seem to care. However, I went on a tangent on this blog about the past and about fighting for the future.
So maybe I will tell the full story some other time.
However, I did get brought to the hotel, the Wynn in a limo. That was pretty bad ass, one of the VP's for the company got it for us. Pretty sweet.
Then my room, which happens to have the number 22, and therefore is awesome, has a panoramic view of the mountain and gold course, I could have gotten the strip, but been there done that before.
The wynn attached below:
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