In fairly recent history (not the "dark ages" 1900s), I decided to put myself through a fairly grueling exercise and diet regimen that in the end (after 8 months), had me looking pretty goof. Well, apart from doing that shaved head thing, yeah, I looked good. In fact I won the school's biggest loser challenge! A whole $70 that went right into replacing my car's battery. Easy come easy go.
I managed to keep myself under 200 pounds for about a year. Then some little things began creeping up on me that not only increased my stress but also increased the weight again. In fact, before long I was almost right where I had begun before the weight loss journey.
So the question is, what happened?
Part of the problem, as I see it now, is that I wasn't doing it entirely for myself, I was trying to impress someone. Notice I said entirely, because in late 2019, I looked pretty damn horrible. My cheeks went in a straight line to what was a long time ago a fairly well defined neck, and my gut wasn't looking so hot, either.
However, at some point in my work career, a career worked among many women, I fell into a tortuous trap: I developed feelings for a colleague. How the hell did this happen? I was married, I thought HAPPILY married, and so was she. And despite being an attractive blonde, she was always griping over something.
A recent conversation with an old friend from that workplace informed me that my feelings were not exactly secret. They probably weren't, for I visited this woman on my prep period often for no educational purpose at all. As my friend relayed, someone had mused aloud if I really thought she would leave her husband, luxury house, and kids for little old me? The answer is a definite NO, I had no expectations. A fantasy or two maybe in the sex department, but fantasies are fantasies.
The fact is, though, that I was doing all that walking in 2020 not only to look better, but also to tell her all that I was doing and how much weight I was losing. A lot of my Facebook posts were posted to get her attention...and wow was I grounded when I got no response. Of course I would text her with an iWatch reading or scale reading and she would just say, "That's awesome!". I was thrilled then, but now I know it was like an automatic response.
This friendship as it was went on as was until mid 2023, when I began to really feel the resentment over what I felt was a one-sided friendship. And to a large extent it was. I did not get what I call unfed attention from her, meaning her checking on me out of the blue just to check on me. And why would I expect that? I expected that out of some blind hope for...what...cheap ego-feeding? Yeah, that's what it was.
I was a mess in the last half of 2023, emotionally and financially. I had been led onto a fragile cliff by a company scamming me for 2 years, plus I was so filled with self loathing that it was hurting my marriage. I was lashing out at my wife in subtle and not so subtle ways. Not only that, my obsession with this person, we'll call her Rose, and the resulting nonreciprocation, had (I now understand) led me to seek attention, however fake it was, from online vehicles like Twitter since mid 2021. And sure I made friends with lots of bots, and it became kind of a game. However, I was hiding my phone even when sitting on the couch with my wife. I wasn't good at it and eventually everything came crashing in late 2023. I had to file bankruptcy for the second time in my life, I was sending messages about Vickie to people and she was seeing them, and I just felt like shit regarding myself..
I went to Starbucks on my 51st birthday and sat at the table drinking my coffee and doing the crossword of the day...and I felt not one ounce of happiness. A fight with my wife later over messages she had seen brought it all to a fork: divorce and sell the house, or try to make things work?
I chose to try. I'm still trying a year and a half later.
The crap online still had not gone away and by April of 2024, it was worse than ever. It was time to get some professional help. Twitter and any social media platform other than Facebook was gone totally by last Christmas.
As for Rose, I had some kind of dark angel in the new principal that wanted me out of that school. At first I felt low and insulted after 13 years there to be so unceremoniously tossed...definitely angry. Of course I had not started therapy at that point either. However, a start at a new school with new colleagues really brightened up my life. It wasn't perfect, and I had some work to do to make myself a better teacher again, but I was definitely in a better place.
Rose texted me early that year to gripe that I had not retained or WORKED to retain a student she had gotten from me. After that, not much. A quick Halloween pic exchange, a Christmas wish from me, a birthday wish from me, and a happy Mother's Day wish from me. From her were no birthday or Christmas wish, no Father's Day wish, either.
The writing was all there...and boy am I happy! One thing therapy has been teaching me is to love me for myself and be happy in my own skin and enjoy my own presence. Another side benefit form this is when my wife and I are having a spat, I am no longer automatically apologizing to maintain some neutral status quo that substitute for happiness.
It's all been a process of re-imaging myself, like updating a computer...damn what people see, it's the image I see that is important. I've been judging myself on how others see me for so long, it's a long process to reverse that. Not a self-dig, just a happy observation. With that, I am trying to learn to eat better so that my insides are happier as well...that and exercise.
All that said...do NOT deny me my iced coffee!
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