It was a pretty solid moment for me. I sent out a few thank you notes to special people who I felt helped me achieve this milestone. I did the work, that goes without saying but without the support & love (which takes many forms) I may not have reached this goal as quickly as I did. So again, thank you.
But now what? Let me explain... no, there is too much, let me sum up.
This isn't my first time at the "getting my shit in order rodeo". Several years ago I went on a health bender that lasted about 6 months. I was eating right, exercising and taking my meds. I dropped my A1c down to about the same as it is now, about 6.6. I was elated. Proud. Really proud of my accomplishment. So proud in fact, within 3 weeks of that moment I was back to eating crap, sitting on the couch and taking my meds about as often as big retailers feel remorse for opening their stores on Thanksgiving. My A1c skyrocketed and never saw a sub 8.0 level until this last go round. So what changed? What clicked? Why did I succeed now where I failed so many times before? Oddly enough the answer will surprise you. It was my continued failure in life which eventually pushed me harder to succeed.
This blog is littered with the debris of my life over the last several years. Loss of job, epic marriage fail, blah blah blah blah. I am not going to regurgitate the past. The blogs are out there if you want to read them. This is about moving forward. However as I sit here, I do have to go back a little to come full circle. Sometime in my early 40's my doctor told me, "If I don't get a handle on my health, I will be in my final decade." This should have struck fear into my core. It didn't. I taunted the universe with my arrogance. The universe ain't got time for that!!!! It was as if the universe was reciting Ezekiel 25:17 to me after eating my Big Kahuna burger and some of my tasty beverage. Things went from bad to worse to even worse to a hairline away from doing something really stupid. I been there before and promised I never would go there again. I kept that promise, barely.
I was starting to lose weight in 2010. I wasn't doing ANYTHING to lose weight. I was off my meds, eating whatever I wanted and I was losing weight. Hey, when your life is in the toilet and you are losing unwanted pounds, ignorance is bliss. This went on for a while. This ride was halted for good in April of 2014 when I was diagnosed with Bells Palsy. Cue the scary music....
The hospital stay and endless testing was enough to get me thinking about making better choices. The blood test reading of 400+ were embarrassing. When I got out of the hospital, I was very weak, droopy faced, vision impaired and I was scared out of my fucking mind. I was alone in the world. Yes I had my kids but they didn't need the burden of knowing their dad was skirting a thin line between sanity and something else. They didn't need to know their dad was struggling to make sense of a world that had chewed him up and spit him out. And they most certainly didn't know their dad was traveling to and from work with limited vision, headaches and the weight of the world on his shoulders. The never needed to know on more than one occasion, over the next 10 weeks he nearly ended up kissing a guardrail or another vehicle while going 80 MPH because he just wanted to get home so he could shut his eyes and make the pain stop. I truly suffered in silence. It wasn't until June when the pain finally subsided, my vision returned to normal and my smile straightened out. The physical effects of the Bells Palsy were gone but the need to fix myself once and for all was ever present.
It was around this time I made a simple decision. No More. Ok well that isn't true. I actually said, lets cut down on the crap I'm eating and make some better choices. I started moving my body on break and lunch. I started eating from the salad bar instead of the prepared foods. I started drinking more water than I thought was possible. Not only was I keeping on track at work, but while I was home too. My routine was set. Walking 3x a day, eating better, taking my meds EVERYDAY and beginning to believe my life was worth something. Over the next several weeks I started feeling better, stronger, more confident and less like a complete and utter failure in life. Of course my old friend the universe was biding it's time for something like this to happen...sharpening it's blade...and waiting.
By the middle of summer I found myself in a relationship. Being in it only helped to strengthen my already booming commitment to staying healthy. Then the universe showed up. No rehash. No staring back into the abyss. What's done is done. Hearts will break and then they heal. The real story is what I did in the face of losing love. Instead of my usual head first dive into a steady diet of self loathing, Little Debbie cakes and binge tv watching, I opted to get back into running. I dug out my Couch to 5K program and just did my best Forrest Gump. There was no "I'll start tomorrow" or "Why bother". I realized there was more to my life than a broken relationship regardless of how much pain I was in. I was still alive, I had come this far and I wasn't done yet. So I embraced my inner runner. While it would have been easy to, I did not allow myself to be derailed on my quest to get my health under control.
I know I will never been a great runner. I still have much discipline to learn. But I am making the time to do what I need to do before I do what I want to do. I need me to be healthy. For myself, my kids and someday maybe a special someone... but I am putting the cart before the horse here. My motivation for staying healthy is based on my desire to live a better life, a longer life and do more with whatever time I have left. I am learning to say yes more. I am learning to say no more. I am learning to be protective of my heart. I'm learning to be patient. I'm saying "it's never too late to be what I might have become" (paraphrase of my favorite quote from George Eliot). I need to learn to stop my mouth sometimes. Anyone have any tips and tricks?
2014 started off like many of the last several years. Me pissed off at the world and dreading the days, weeks and months ahead. Then one day it changed. Then it changed again, and again. The difference this time was the change didn't make me weaker, it made me stronger.
So where do I go from here? Wherever my legs and music will take me. I'll be making stops at several 5K races between now and spring, my reward for the training! I'll be pushing my limits to increase my skills, not just in running but in many other avenues of my life. I will not give up when I have a bad day. I will give myself time to feel, think, act and react. I will not let anyone dictate my life. I will teach my kids lessons I have learned to help them navigate this life. I will do so much more than I have done in the past because there is no time like the present. I will love again and I am already starting with me. I will get my A1c down below 6 by my next blood test in February. There was a lot of good in me before. In fact there still is. I am committed to making sure I remember that. Only I can define me, nobody else. I will stumble and perhaps I will fall from time to time... but why do we fall? To learn how to get back up.
I've gotten back up yet again. You want to knock me down? F' you, catch me if you can!
Until next time.
Paul
The title of this blogs is from Blues Traveler "Conquer Me" Take a listen:
No comments:
Post a Comment