Since I'm spending more of my time than I thought updating this blog (which is a good thing--I think it's helping me think through some stuff and it's keeping me honest with my tracking), I decided to update the description last night. I didn't realize it would be right at the top of the page. I'm sure I can change it, but I don't mind it for now. My point is that I hadn't really decided yet what I want this blog to be.
It's starting to take the shape of an online journal (see, I'm still stuck in Livejournal mode) and becoming a place where I can lay out the shit in my head for examination.
One of the topics we talk about in our Weight Watchers meetings is why we want to lose weight in the first place. I've written about airplanes and amusement parks, about my heart and my health, about growing old with my girlfriend and having fun with my nephew. But one thing I haven't talked about is Rob.
Rob was my best friend. The best friend I've ever had. He's been dead now for one year and three months exactly. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through (harder, even, than my dog dying the year before that, which had been incredibly difficult for a number of reasons and something I thought I'd never get over). One of the hard parts about accepting Rob's death was the fact that, although he was truly my best friend and I could not have imagined life without him, I hadn't seen him for many months. At the time of his death, he was living in a halfway house, trying to get clean from prescription pills and alcohol.
Rob and I had so much fun together. A lot of that fun was in college and we pushed one another, in what felt like a fun way, toward greater gluttony. We'd spend all day drinking and getting high, or go out for a three hour meal to stuff our faces. We lived together in several places at different times in our lives, but our lives together revolved around excess. Even a Monday work night was fun with Rob around because we'd slice up a block of havarti with a roll of butter crackers, break open a jug of wine, roll a few joints, spread out some cheesecake, pop a pill or two, and have ourselves a rollicking good time.
We ate, drank, and smoked everything that we could. We were absolute gluttons and lushes and sloths and whatever other ugly thing you can think to call us, but we had a fucking fantastic time together. Until morning. Mornings were awful. Sick, weak, our bodies basically giving out. This went on for several years, but eventually I started cleaning myself up and Rob started relying more heavily on alcohol.
By the time he was living in the halfway house, I'd already completely stopped smoking cigarettes. My open heart surgery was enough to scare me away from pills and uppers and drinking binges forever. I was eating like shit still, but I was living like a normal person at least.
Not Rob.
So it was hard to be around him. Talking to him was more and more painful because he'd pretend like he wasn't drinking, when I knew very well that he was slurring at 11am because he'd been drinking since 6am and swallowing Xanax since 7am. I tried to talk to him but he's as stubborn as I am, possibly more so, and he grew resentful. So I stopped trying.
I did get to speak with him a few days before he died, and he finally sounded like his old self. He said he had stopped drinking (a line I'd heard too many times by then) and wanted to get together. I couldn't that week but promised to see him by the end of the month. I found out that he died that Monday, and they identified his body a week and a half later.
When Rob died, my world turned upside down. My heart broke into a million pieces. Parts of me died that will never return. A part of my soul was ripped out. The world became a very scary and bitter place. Whatever plans I had for the future seemed meaningless. That novel I wanted to write? Screw it--I'd probably die before I wrote a page. Finally living life as a thin, healthy person? Yeah, right...I'd probably end up getting hit by a train on my way to the gym. I entered a nightmare and felt so incredibly, unspeakably alone.
I wasn't alone, though. And I didn't die with him, even though it felt like I might. As the roaring horror of what happened started to dull many dark months later, another sound started to take its place. It was fear, like a huge alarm going off in my head telling me that it was too late for Rob, but not too late for me. I felt like Ebeneezer Fucking Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I wasn't given a second chance exactly, but I was made painfully aware that Rob was not getting any more chances. He was done. I still had a chance and, even if I screwed it all up, it did help clarify for me that things that I wanted to change, given the time.
Of course, the real problem is that I don't know if I'll be given the time. No idea. None of us know. I might die tomorrow. I might die tonight. Can I say I'm happy with where my life has taken me? No, not really. There's a lot that I want to accomplish. But am I happy with where I'm taking my life? Well...yeah. At this moment, yeah. I'm finally headed in the right direction and it feels...good. It feels really good. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm on my way there. That's a lot more than I could have said a year ago. So if I had to add something to my list of reasons I want to lose weight, it's this: because I want to honor Rob's memory by changing my life in the ways he was trying to change his. I love him enough to see that he was getting better and his chances were taken away while he was fighting to get on the right path. As long as I still have a chance, I better be on the right fucking path.
Rob, I love you and miss you. I know you'd be proud that I've had the willpower to lose 30 pounds, and hopefully you'll be even prouder when I reach the end of my journey. One way or another, I'm reaching the end at some point--I might as well try to look and feel good when I get there.
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