Personal Journal

It's not my ass that's fat!

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn

It's my belly that's fat. You'd think a man who weighs 250 (252.8 to be exact) pounds would have some sort of ass expansion. But no, I have man boobs developing and a spare tire that's only really around the front.

My point is that I got back onto the weight watcher's program tonight. It is time to move toward my goals. There's something about this that relates to Jean's death, and I'm not sure what it is, and not entirely sure this is a place to look right now.

But in the last two or three weeks, goals have become important to me. I don't remember a time when I had goals previously. That's what really stuns me. What's wrong with my memory?

My life has three phases of the past that I can see right now, or that are important for me right now.

The most recent past is the past of my life after Jean died. That leads me to the present. That's a period of 3 months. It's only been three months.

Then there is the period of Jean's illness, but this is clouded back a ways. I don't remember, really, what it was like to have Jean healthy, without cancer. She moved in during November of 2002. In October of 2003 I was sent on a business trip that lasted until the end of January 2004. In the first week of February 2004 Jean's diagnosis - her death sentence - was given. So I spent more time with her in my life as my lover, who had cancer, than without it. So that whole relationship is now clouded by the cancer. All of my memories are there, and I can only vaguely remember the three seasons I had with her in 2003 (the fourth was in Maryland on that business trip).

Then there is the period in which I was married to Renee. That period is also very clouded - that ended in the beginning of 2002, and I really don't remember being "alone" after Renee because Jean and I hit it off so quickly thereafter.

In each of these periods, I can't really remember having had goals that were beyond one megalithic thing.

When I was married to Renee, my goal was to find a way to leave Renee. It was in that period in which I became an avid mountain biker, but I don't remember that being a goal - that was a way out of sharing space with Renee.

With Jean, as I say, it feels to me now as if the whole relationship occurred after her diagnosis. MY goal was to support her. There was nothing more important in my existence, and it consumed every thought I had, it seems, day and night.

And in the most recent period, these last three months, my goal has been to endure through today, find a way to live for tomorrow.

So over the weekend, I put up those motivational pieces, and in both my desire to become physically fit again, and to branch out and stretch my muscle as a writer once more. To succeed at what was important to me.

It does feel selfish - beyond the risk of failure and the overwhelming sensations of beginnging the journey of a thousand miles with a single step. It feels selfish.

There seems to be no other human being associated with my goals, and that's strange. At least when my goal was leaving Renee, it had as a side effect freeing her from the lie I was living with her. That benefitted her over the long run, at least.

And everything that mattered to me over the year 2004 was wrapped up in that marvelous woman who indeed made my heart smile, and in the last arc of her life's years, still managed to make me feel more loved than I've ever felt in my life.

So now it's just me, trying to make myself proud of myself. I wonder: Do other people have to strive to make themselves proud of their lives? It's one of those things that people don't talk about.

I'm still trying to live through today. Just about every day.
But I have an awareness that 7 days makes a week, and 30 a month, and if I don't recognize the thread of time that runs through those days, the stagnation will be my death. Jean said "Stagnation equals death."

I've wondered if I have survived the hardest part or not yet. When I thought that before, something came along and taught me that I had not yet.

But Joyce said something to me the other day when I was so devestated after finding those boxes of pictures. Every setback must make you aware of progress you had not realized you had made. I may have taken a step back, but I had to take the step forward first in order to have a setback.

I still don't know exactly what it means to have goals and recognize the desire to achieve to them. I'm really more concerned that I'm not going to make any measurable progress. But that's foolish and I'm not going to try not to let insecurities prevent me from trying. I hate to fail, but failure is part of the success process.

And as I put the paper on the door to the car:
SUCCEED
Lead yourself to success.