Fantastic Friday

by Michael on 26/06/09 at 3:38 pm

Fantastic Friday

This has been an awesome week and standing on the cusp of this big Gay Pride weekend, I really feel like a changed man. I’m big on symbolism. I love it when the world conspires to heighten my life’s meaning. It’s the stuff that let’s me know that I ‘m on the right track. And I’m a fan of validation, I need it – lots of it.

So Susan, my life coach, started things off last week by encouraging me to create a goal that wasn’t so much weight specific, and that got me thinking about 17-year-old Michael. Then Carol, the once upon a time high-school teacher of said 17-year-old boy shows up unexpectedly to re-introduce me to my younger self. And then, Mary,  a woman who is becoming more important to me with each passing week, pops in on Thursday to punctuate it all.

Mary and I met through a work relationship and I really liked her from the first time I met her. We did some work together and I enjoyed interracting with her, but then she decided it was time to move on. And I was really sad about that. We tried to stay connected over the past year or so, and we’ve been doing a pretty good job of it. But a couple of months ago, we our circles start overlapping more and more. And now, we’re a pretty tight team and tackling a project together. So I’m on the phone with Mary a few times a week and I love talking to her. We share a lot of the same issues and problems and work in similar fields, so there’ s a lot of common ground.

Mary’s been supporting me through a recent situation where someone really betrayed me. I mean, we’re talking about blind folded me, bent me over, tied me down, and pushed real hard! Yes, I was fucked! HARD. It hurts and it infuriates me, and sometimes it makes me want to cry.  Mary has been walking this road with me for a couple of weeks, and she’s been wonderfully supportive. So yesterday, at the end of a long phone call, I said to her,  “Thanks for being there and supporting me this week. It’s been a hard week.” And she just told me that she loves spending time with me, whether it’s on the phone or in person she just loves being with me. Wow! She could have said, “Oh that’s okay,” or “Don’t worry about it,” but no, she punctuated one of the most important weeks of my life with “I just love spending time with you.” I felt so honoured, so valued — so significant.

Oh man, I am NOT heading for another one of those Oprah crying, cats running to see if I’m okay things … this is not happening. But it’s become abundantly clear to me this week how important the people around us are, especially when they’re mirroring back to us what we’ve been trying – but failing – to see.  Susan nudged me toward getting to know that 17-year-old boy, Carol cultivated that by telling me what qualities attracted her to that 17-year-old boy in the first place (and still do) , and then,  Mary comes along and says, “I just love spending time with you.”  Isn’t that just the cherry on top of the proverbial ice cream sundae!

I want to say that it’s sad that it has taken me 46 years to figure this out, but right now, in this moment, that all just slips away. Yes, the journey has been hard and filled with all kinds of monsters, boogeymen, and shenanigans, but what’s important for me to seize tightly in my fist is this: I’m okay. I have always been okay. I’ve done a lot of things to try and prove to the world that I’m okay, and I think that’s what led me to my 312-pound self. And now, I just feel like I don’t need it any more. I am okay. In fact, I’m more than okay. I’m an awesome man with an incredible drive, endurance, and courage. I always get “it” done. Always and eventually.

Yesterday I had a hard workout with my trainer Phil. He had me doing one arm dumbbell rows. I hate them! (Lean over a workout bench and support yourself on one arm with your back parallel to the floor, pick up a dumbbell with your other hand and pull it up toward your side.) He knows I hate them and I’ve had to do them twice this week already, AND, he give me a 35-pound weight … I’m not finished yet … and he makes me do 25 reps with each arm. I hate him! But as I’m pulling through these dumbbell rows, I’m just thinking about that 17-year-old boy and letting him emerge stronger than he ever was. And do I them … all 50 of them! And when they get hard, I think about that guy who screwed me, and my anger pumps out some more testosterone so I burn through these things. And I really like this feeling.

Now, armed with this new sense of self, I am eager to keep this momentum going. And this is no longer a 100 pound weight-loss project, it’s really about finding out who this 17-year-old Michael really is and what he can do. And now, I’m really looking forward to this journey. Now, it feels as though I’m on a race track and I can see the finish line and I’m raring to go. Before now, I couldn’t see that finish-line tape, there’s was too much stuff cluttering the track. It’s all out of the way now and I can see where I’m headed. This is awesome.

And by the way, I’ve dropped another pound, so that’s seven pounds since my meltdown and recommitment. Awesome!

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One Response to “Fantastic Friday”

  1. Phil

    Jun 28th, 2009

    I love you man, and I have felt the energy inside you raring to get out. It’s like the phoenix and re-birth where we discover that it is time to start a new beginning but always acknowledging the past. I’m excited for you and remember also that you are inspiring all of us.

    Phil

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