Coming along

I can feel my body changing again.

Small changes

Barely noticeable
Only noticed by me

I'm moving around better.
This also means I'm moving around more.

The walk to and from the men’s room that included

Stops on the way there and back,

Stops that have gradually decreased,

To a couple stops on the way back,

Walking all the way back to my desk

No longer trying to figure out a way of accomplishing simple tasks,

From the comfort of my bed

Finding joy in moments of air guitar,

Running up and down the aisles at work

Jamming out, as my co-workers look on

 Wondering why it took me so long to realize what I had to do

Realizing the inevitable

Adulthood

An epiphany of sorts

I was chatting with my significant other the other day. 

She's been really down of late.

She's been having a difficult time finding a job

It's causing her to be down on herself.

It's affecting her self-worth.

She keeps calling herself a loser.

I keep telling her she's not a loser, that's she just feels lost.

I try to tell her we can find her, if she wants to be found.

I asked her to stop calling herself a loser.

In that moment,

I had a realization, a sort of epiphany.

In the last few weeks, 

After reaching rock bottom and deciding to grow up,

Be an adult, responsible for myself,

I haven't felt like a loser.

The constant tapes that played in my head,

Have either stopped or I can't hear them anymore.

In that moment, I realized something profound had happened.

I think I've gained a positive idea of self worth.

After years of hating myself,

I'm starting to tolerate,

Dare say, I like

Jim

A memory of Jamaica

When I was 7, my father and I took a trip to Jamaica. 
We were there to visit my cousins, Aunt and Uncle.

It was beautiful.
Even at 7, I could recognize how beautiful it was.
I didn't want to leave.

Just about every day, my father and I would go down to the beach, Doctor's Cave in Montego Bay.

White sand, electric blue water.

Beautiful

There was a refreshment stand there.
They sold ice creams and lemonade and other things.
I can still taste the tartness of that lemonade. 

One day, I went up to the refreshment stand and asked for ice cream or lemonade.
 Not sure, really what it was anymore now.
Anyhow,
I asked the girl behind the counter for the treat in question.

And

She said, No

I started to cry my little 7-year old eyes out.
Wailing, bawling.
LOUDLY
At that point,
I really didn’t care what kind of scene I was making.

I started crying and turned around and started to walk back down the beach.

Into the Caribbean, crying the entire way.

Afterward, my father collected me out of the water.

The girl apologized to me and said she was just joking

This incident haunts me to this day.
I think about it often.

It has taken on more relevance than ever before lately.

Backslide

Domino's Handmade Pan Pizza, topped with Pepperoni, Sausage and Diced Tomatoes. Two small (1 1/2 oz) bags of lays potato chips, two 20 oz bottles of Coke.

No excuses, but, just to put you in my head space......


My job has been changing lately. We are going in a new direction and I've had to acquire new skills. I don't feel very confident in my ability to do this new job.

Last night, I was alone, the roommates were out of town.

My mind kept shouting at me to get the items listed above.

I have fruit and yogurt to eat in the refrigerator and cool filtered water to drink. 

I chose to be bad to myself.

Of course, in the moment, it was....wonderful.

I remembered why food had become my best friend.

This morning as I was waking up, something interesting happened.

My body rejected it. 

It all came back up. 

As I sat there, trying to clean myself up, before I got in the shower, I wanted to remember this moment.

I wanted this moment to melt into my brain. 

I want it to haunt me.

I don't want to forget it. 

I just hope I've learned the lesson.

If I find myself in a moment like this again, I need to pick up my phone and call someone.

Someone, anyone could have talked me down.

I will not hesitate to do so, should the need arise.

It's a trap or The fix is in

In 1957, John Yudkin, British physiologist and scientist, began warning about the dangers of sugar and refined sweeteners, which culminated in the book, Pure, White and Deadly (published in English in 1972, with new editions in 1986 and 2012).

Which showed how closely sugar is associated with coronary heart disease and Type II diabetes?

Something interesting happened after that.

Fat content was touted as the real evil, not sugar.

Low fat became the way to go.

Low fat foods don't taste very good in general.

So the food manufacturers figured out if they added more sugar,

It would make up for the lack of fat.

You see where I'm going.

So, we indulged in low fat foods, thinking they were better for us.

Yet, even today the myth of low fat persists.

Around the same time that low fat, higher sugar foods were coming into popular favor, another substance started creeping its way into the food supply.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

 Cheaper

And in moderation, allegedly, quite safe.

Except that, it's in just about everything.

So, it takes some effort to find foods with natural ingredients.

The American food supply and that of most industrialized countries is suspect.

And....we pay the price....