Twilight Sunrise

What a whirlwind the last year has been.

What an absolutely crazy, unexpected, mind-blowing, and glorious year it has been.

Let’s start with the easy stuff:

I’ve been fat my whole life. Different levels of fat, to be sure, but basically my entire adult life I’ve been fat. I was heavy as a kid, and grew larger in middle school, and pushed past 200 pounds in high school and it just kept going. It got out of control in a hurry and although I tried to change it in different ways it never really took. Not completely.

There was that time about 10 years ago when I got very serious about it – thinking you had a heart attack will do that to a person – but in the end that didn’t stick, either. I lost about 80 pounds, though, and got to my lowest weight I’d seen in years since I gained all the weight, but a large life change pushed me back into the usual depression I suffer with and I turned to my great comfort – food. I ate my way back into all the weight I had lost and then some. I was humiliated.

I have had conversations with many people over the years – friends, family, colleagues, doctors – and the message is very similar: we want you around and we don’t know how long you’ll be here at this current pace.

They were right, of course. All of them. But that’s the thing with making big, personal life changes – only one person truly is the decision maker. And that person just wasn’t buying into it. Not completely, at least. Sure, there were times here and there where I’d drop 10 or 20 but then fall off the wagon and gain it back. Life was getting ugly. I became dependent on supplemental oxygen just to move around. I didn’t have the strength or endurance to care for most of life’s normal things. Getting up and down the stairs to do laundry was nearly impossible. Life was hard. Life was very, very hard.

Throughout all of the weight issues I have also had struggles with anxiety and depression throughout my life. I have spent more than my fair share of time wishing I simply wasn’t here anymore. Around 10 years ago (just after I’d lost a bunch of the weight) I was pushed into a severe depression and spent a year or so in a perpetual suicidal state. This after spending most of my 20’s house-bound, unable to work, unable to live. As I hid from my demons as best I could I watched my life slowly pass me by, which only made those demons stronger, and louder, and meaner.

Throughout it all the mental and physical health issues played upon one another to push me around and hold me down from any true potential I had. Still, through all that, I continued to push and struggle and fight, and I made a name for myself professionally, I found a life for myself, albeit one that was very difficult.

In early 2024 I decided that it was time to look into surgical options for my weight. I had done this once before but I did not see things through as I was unwilling to give up cigar smoking while going through the process. This time, I was more determined and about 11 months ago I had my consultation with a surgeon. I spent the following day having my last cigars and I started my journey.

The year was long but not as difficult as I had expected. As I have usually found in life, when you put your mind to something it is often quite easy to see it through, and this time I was absolutely determined. I had surgery in September and I am down over 115 pounds since that consultation – over 150 down from the highest weight I ever recorded. I am able to breathe better, get up and down the stairs better, move around in general better. I can get out of the house, see friends, visit with relatives, and even travel for work. The physical changes have been remarkable. But that was just the start.

Throughout this process I began to look at my life pre-surgery and post-surgery. Not only was I changing physically but I would need to make many changes outside of that. My diet, my exercise plan, my mental health – all of these things needed to be looked at and adjusted. I am not the same person as I was – I’m a New Me.

New Me is taking a new look at life. New Me is focused on physical and mental health, identifying my strengths and weaknesses, finding new passions and making a difference in the world. New Me is stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally. New Me meditates daily, fills out a gratitude journal, and exercises each day. New Me is a much, much better me.

I continue to look for ways to better myself – one of those things is writing out my thoughts and putting words to paper (so to speak), including on this blog. I don’t expect there to be people stumbling onto this and reading it and taking anything to heart, but if even one person does, I’ll consider that a way. In the end, I’m doing this for me – for the New Me to learn and grow and flourish while dancing in the sun. And I’m doing this for Old me, so he knows, deep down inside, that he wasn’t all that bad after all, and that things can get better. Things do get better. Things are better.