Cowardice

I worked out this morning for the first time in 8 years (about.)  What a fool I am to have skipped such a vital part of a healthy lifestyle for so long.  I hope I will keep it up, but I really doubt it since I can never keep p any good habit.

I missed lunch today but more than made up for it eating nuts throughout the day.  At one point I though that if I worked out I could eat like I wanted.  I put in all the correct numbers into the elliptical trainer and discovered that in my workout this morning I had burned enough calories to cover the Hershey's chocolate bar I had for breakfast yesterday.  Didn't cover all the X-mas cookies someone brought into work that I have been snacking on voraciously.

I feel like this is hopeless, but I've given up for so long, I just need to pick myself up off the floor and try again, as hopeless as it seems.  If there were a neat (and destructive) alternative that at least promised some small happiness, I would probably jump at the chance.  That never seems to happen though, and when it does, I screw it up.

It has always been a long held but totally distant dream (similar to dreaming of winning the lottery big) that I would sit beside a pretty female on a plane trip and strike up a conversation that turns into something.  When I would travel during college and early years of professional life I would think about it nearly every time I boarded a plane.  The one or two times that someone pretty was seated in easy conversation range, I didn't know what to say and ended up ignoring her (didn't want her to know how incompetent I was.)

So about 5 years ago, long after I had quit thinking about it, it finally happened.  The gal was very pretty but not "high maintenance" pretty.  I started by saying hello and noticed a positive and engaging "hello" in return.  "Good sign" I thought.   Normally I would freeze up but it was still early and I hadn't yet gauged that she was in-fact very cute and slim, both characteristics I really like.  So I was lucid enough to ask if she was headed home or headed out (I know it was a dumb, pathetic line.)  She was headed home as was I (something in common.)  We chatted about where we each lived in the metro area and then where we were from and then a little bit about family and occupation.  We had actually engaged in conversation before the normal freeze up took place.

Then something truly amazing happened, as the discussion on one topic petered out, she took the initiative to bring up some additional topics.  (I know this sounds normal to most guys but this almost never happened to me before.)  With a few brief, and not uncomfortable pauses in the conversation we literally talked from Oakland to DC.  But then, as always happens, I screwed up.  Being so inexperienced, I hadn't asked for her full name.  I knew this as we got close but couldn't think of/bring myself to ask before we landed and parted ways.  I really thing she would have given me her digits.  What a freaking idiot I am.

I actually searched for her on the basis of her employment (USG, urban search & rescue), hobby (singing with a piano player in clubs) and location Arlington, but I never found her again.  I didn't deserve to. The only solace was that I know it would have been one of the worst things I could have done to keep being a good Christian.  That was good, but I certainly felt really bad about it.  I still look back on that whole episode as an example of extreme cowardice on my part.  I am very ashamed of that episode in my life (as I am of so many others.)

Armageddon (Trivial Reference)

To some degree (probably a lot larger than I realize) this blog is making me self absorbed.  Why would I think anyone cares about my private suffering.  I suppose, actually this is just for me.  It isn't really.  I actually pay attention to the page view count.  I want someone else to read this, so there's that.  I do notice that by an order of magnitude (literally) the pages most popular are the ones where I am talking about hiring an escort.  So on my humble blog established (ostensibly) for me to engage in a bit of self healing by articulating my deepest concerns, I have managed to attract sex zombies trolling the web for material with which to titillate themselves.

So what is my self absorbed and titillating self thinking about today?  Actually I am feeling tapped out.  Tired of trying to make progress only to fall flat on my face.  I say I want to be a good Christian, but I fail at every turn.  I have asked for help from the deacons (actually elders, but the average reader would understand the meaning of deacons better) but to no avail.  I guess I could go back, grab them by the lapels and shake until they pay attention and realize how much I am hurting.  But that would probably be a bit much. I am too proud I suppose to continue to beg for help.  That isn't a good trait.  Jesus made the gentile woman beg for table scrap even after he made reference as though her request was coming from little dogs.

Even so it would be like:  Listen to what I already told you!  Think of something more creatively than just asking me what I want you to do.  You are the rescue workers.  You tell me how you can help.

Yea, doesn't sound like a good Christian discussion; I'll just plan to die at Armageddon if not sooner.

Cattywampus

My diet is going to hell now.  I haven't updated my tracking sheet in over a week.  I just pigged out in a major way over lunch today and I ate a big (500 cal) midmorning snack.  I can feel my stomach stretching from the huge lunch portion I consumed.

I am so freaking ashamed of myself. I have no excuse for my actions.  I have no self control to speak of.  So I just got finished with the weekend and it is a shameful mess.  I feel the need for fast for another 3 weeks until the new year.  But, of course I don't have the ability.  I will just have to keep trying (and hoping for a different outcome than before) which is, of course, insane.

There are a few basics I can depend on.  I have goals:

1. Be a good Christian
1. Study
2. Meetings
3. Prayer
4. Service
2. Take Care of myself physically
1. Loose Weight
2. Exercise
3. Take care of myself (and others as needed) fiscally
1. Work hard and feel good about the work I do (if possible)
2. Conduct myself in a fiscally responsible manner
4. Be a good Father
5. Take care of the things in my purview
1. Home
2. Auto
3. Other
6. Entertainment for the sake of Sanity and Continued Productivity

And the goals/responsibilities are so many that I just can't seem to deal with it all.

The ability to shake myself free seems impossible.

I am not making this I am failing.  It is like I need a friend to come along and work beside me to get stuff done.  To give me the encouragement to keep going.  This friend does not seem to exist.  If he does, I wouldn't ask for fear of taking his time from more important things.  I don't have any real friends to speak of.  I had a friend or two before.  But I didn't know what I had and didn't cultivate that friendship.

More Self Hate

So I am just a piece of excrement unceremoniously extruded from a dog's anus.  I am all grown up and now I am growing old.  When I was young, I thought I was some hot shit.  I have now come to realize that I am nothing more than a steaming pile.

There was a company "thing" recently (typical this time of year.)  No one seemed to want to talk to me.  Yes I was late and all the tables were taken.  No one with an excuse to do something else would acknowledge me.  I wasn't totally ignored when I broke into a couple of conversations.  It was telling though when shortly after breaking into a conversation with two other people, they both decided they needed to get something to eat, leaving me standing alone.

Something weird is going on at church.  About one per meeting, someone is speaks to me.  Not engaging in conversations but at least they say something.  I can't tell if this is a change in their attitude fundamentally or if it is because my kid started coming to the meetings with me. Everyone used to like my kid.  But once my kid was kicked out for breaking the rules then people stopped talking to me as well.  That doesn't totally explain it though.  My kid was coming with me to church for several weeks.  That all went to crap though. what worries me about the current situation is that I really believe it will stop soon enough.  It always has in the past.  This never lasts.

I have begun to really loathe my situation, who I am, what hangs over me.  I just want this to be over, but it won't end.  And when the end does come it will be slow and painful and embarrassing and humiliating.  I just can't get up, can't climb out, can't move hardly at all.  And when God finds me in that position he is going to know that I really could have done better and to the best of my ability to understand his expectations and the consequences of their failure, he will kill me.

Diet and Death

I'm into this diet for a few weeks now.   It is officially "on."  In other words I am taking it seriously but, as usual as soon as I get comfortable that it is working, it stops working.  A year or more ago I had started a diet like this in April and it lasted, for the most part, until Thanksgiving at which point I let it go totally.

I have discovered I have a major problem with nuts.  I can't have them around and I have stopped trying to overcome that temptation.  I just don't buy them anymore.  I have also taken to largely fasting during the work day.  When I have a lot of meetings, this provides enough of a distraction that I am not as bothered by the hunger.

Anyway I am sensing that this has an adverse affect on my thinking.  The brain uses carbs to restore its ability to make decisions.  I am finding myself coasting more (mentally speaking) and so I decided to get lunch today.  I did find that the much smaller food portions of late have shrunk my stomach and I couldn't even finish a small "plate" of sushi roll.  (Good for me!)

I need to get back to work though. It was really discouraging to find that the last corporate management change over is not working out well.  The new management team wants short term results.  No real understanding of the market we are in.  To them we are just another construction company, as though Health Care is just another business.

I am going to the meeting tonight.  I am excited and tense about it.  I always hate going, as any faithful reader of this blog can't help but note.

I think the motivation for this diet, (I have been trying to loose weight for decades) came from me really studying myself in the mirror and being thoroughly disgusted with what I see.  I have long known that I am fat, but I didn't see it for a long time. I kept looking at myself from the front.  Several years ago I looked at myself from the side and saw how big I look.  It took several additional years to work through the denial but I now know beyond doubt that I am fat, and how to take meaningful action to address the issue.  Of course there was the motivation to do so and, at least for the moment, I have enough to continue.  So much more to the story but I am sure I've exhausted my readers' (presuming there are any such) attention.

I really wanted to talk about death in this post.  It is sneaking closer.  I can feel it and smell it but it isn't as obvious as it typically is.  I think that I will be soon in a life and death struggle in my own head.  I suppose I usually am as I struggle to do God's will in the severely limited and stilted way that I do.  That is certainly life and death enough.

It is coming closer in a more tangible way as I wrestle with the final/ultimate solution.  I think I am getting exhausted with the hurting and the problems looming over my head.  I just "can't" handle that.  Now that the company is going down for another dip into the viability meter "Danger" hash marks, I may just check out.  The really wild thing is that the new owners are just making these bloodthirsty screams for profits and yet they know next to nothing about the market this company serves.

The Trap

Well, the kid moved  back in this weekend.  The drama was mild but certainly there.  Her insurance is almost cancelled on her car and I don't want her driving it around.  She agreed.  And then when she left for work today, she drove off in her uninsured car.

God loves me but I don't recognize my perception of it very poignantly now.  I feel like I am still an enemy of God, as I was labeled by my censuring committee.  I keep repeating the God will kill me soon.  And why not.  I know what he wants and I refuse to do it.  I don't tell others about his expectations and the benefits of ceding to them.  I don't like being with his people.

I went to the first "Sunday" service in months and it felt good because I wasn't surrounded by the congregation about which I would ordinarily be.  It felt much better.  Less stressful.  Anyway it is an awful time I am going into now.  I hate what I am presented with and I wish I could just end it all.  The final solution is looking pretty good now.  It isn't like I am really suffering much.  I am a typical spoiled american.  I am not hungry, my family wasn't killed by rebels in front of my own eyes.  I am now aware of any horrid disease that will leave me crippled and/or without sound mind.  I am simply  distressed about my abject refusal to serve God.  Why would I be this way.  I know Jehovah God to be a good and loving individual.  But the standards he sets are so very high, it seems impossible for me to reach them.  It isn't though, with his help even I could (presuming there is enough time to do so.)  Apparently, I just don't want it.

I seem to want what Satan offers more:  the "temporary enjoyment of sin."  I feel I am missing something by not having some of that sin.  But the more I have indulged in the sin the more bitter my life, and the more sin I want.  I see the trap, I examine the fine quality of its construction, I see (at least at some level) how it works.  I know the way out and yet I am still captured thereby.  This is one fine device.  When the victim can see it, figure it out, understand its workings and yet I remain clutched.

Damocles

So I paused over the title but, as is customary, I moved to the blog input box and just started typing.  As usual.  I'll figure out the title when I'm done.  In case anyone hasn't figured out, this is just the blog of a deeply disturbed individual who finds writing down his troubles to be somewhat calming.


Deeply disturbed is correct, but not as depressed as oh, say a year ago at this time.  It has been a long struggle to come up from the mire of depression.  The journey continues.  I am not well.  I still consider the ultimate solution but not with the seriousness and the propensity to act as once existed not so long ago.  Fear not, dear reader,  I am not a deeply disturbed violent criminal; or maybe to some of you that is a disappointment.  I am just a man fighting for his sanity.

It is a week later and in the interim my child of twenty something years has asked to move back home.  This is good news since I am falling apart.  He or she is worth living for to try to help.  Myself, well not so much.  I took a couple of days off, Monday and Tuesday of this week.  I intended to use it as a time to go to my other house and do a little much needed maintenance.  Instead I sat around eating and watching TV all 3 days.  Thankfully there was a need to be back at work early and I didn't spend the 4th day as such.

I went to "the meeting" what I call going to church.  For cryin' out loud for this audience (such that it is,) why don't I just say "I went to church?".  Ok, so, I went to church this week.  It was not any special meeting just the typical mid week service.  I resist going because everyone is so happy and cheerful.  The congregation censured me earlier imposing restrictions on my activity therein for the last 7 or 8 years so I can go but am not supposed to engage in certain of the activities.

I don't fit in there (really I don't fit in anywhere,) and my attendance is usually coming into the sanctuary with about 60 seconds prior to the meeting start.  I usually walk up the aisle next to the wall and sit on the far left side (as out of the way as possible.)  This time that aisle was clogged with people chatting happily amongst themselves.  so I had to walk up the more heavily populated (but wider so there was room to pass) left center aisle.  I passed the chief on my censorship committee and he did the customary "Hi, howyadoin' greeting"  I shook his hand but really wanted to just get past him.  I don't mind trying to make friends, it is just that these people just want make an appearance, a show of friendship.  It is supposed to be something more, but then, I am supposed to love God.  They aren't the problem, I am.  I was rightfully censured and probably should have been expelled.

I just hate what this is all about, but it is like having a tooth pulled.  You have to go through a whole lot of intense pain, but you are better off in the end.  I just feel like there is a ton of bricks (in actuality, it is the IRS) hanging over my head and ready to drop.  It might not be so bad if it fell all at once and I die not knowing what hit me.  But they (the bricks or the IRS depending on how literally you want to take this) will descend slowly.  I will see the pain and feel the crushing weight and watch/feel/smell the life being crushed out of me.