So….I got all this great stuff going on in life, right? Yeah, i do. I’d have to say that by most accounts, right now, my life is probably the happiest that it’s been in many, MANY years. I’d even venture to say, this might be the happiest that I’ve been in – oh, dare I say it? – my adult life. Meaning, since turning 18, and “flying the coop”, although in my case, those wings got a little caught a time or two and my initial flight was more like a battering ram knocking over everything I could to get the hell out of dodge, but we’re leaving that for the album, lol (#worththewaitproject, yes, insert shameless plug) and let’s just stick with the original imagery. I digress…let me get back on track.
Why am I so happy? What am I talking about? What’s going on? Not only am I happily partnered for nearly 16 years now still w/ Ed who puts up with all my adventures and joins in from time to time 😉 Have awesome pets, we love our house, seem to be making it, and for a little more depth:
Ayear ago January I told Ed and my mother, the two most important figures in my life at the time (and are still, although a few others have happily crept in) that I wanted ALL my endeavors to be creative in nature within a years time. I applied myself, and that happened. Within that year, all of my employment efforts center around creative output. Music was already in place via karaoke hosting, then more dj’ing, finding new music to play in both arenas, searching for new & better tracks to both mix with and to have singers have access to. Then the fantastic development of “Worth The Wait”, and the awesome Korg microWORKSTATION now to WRITE this music that is still sitting in my heart and my head to get this story out so I can continue on to the next chapters,
As if my great love for music – that I’ve had my whole life – being nurtured again and developed further wasn’t enough, I had the great fortune to get signed to an agency that saw something enough in me from the acting side that trusted me and helped develop the business side of that industry and how it fits together, allowing me to really work on continuing to develop that talent at the same time and I’ve had more auditions and “action” in the last 6 months than I’ve had in the last 4 years combined!
A psychological breakthrough – probably the most major thing that has ever happened to me on a very deep and personal level – happened earlier this year. A mental “mind blowing” that literally changed my life in unfathomable ways. The very few who are the most intimately close to me know the full details of this, and while that will be publicly discussed when the album comes out next year, here we are six months later and I am almost stunned at how different of a person I truly feel I am today. I know that Ed and my mother can see this and at first I could get completely lost in offshoots of it; things like “lost time”, “mistakes I’ve made because of….”, “things I didn’t understand”…”things I missed….”…. I don’t really do THAT part of it anymore and I’m glad – now it’s the opposite. It’s like “what can I do NOW?”, “what neat things can we see?”, “what neat things can we DO”, “let’s just go RUN!”..and maybe the only fear is that am i going to be too old too fast to get to enjoy all of those things?
So you’d think that all that and the weight coming off would just be the freaking icing on the cake, right?
So fast forward…to today. The weight loss….I personally of course and freaking loving it. But I’ve found the one thing I do not like about it, and I think that I may have actually heard some other people who have lost large amounts of weight say it before too.
There are some people who are either so “shocked” they are put off and then uncomfortable, or I have had a few who are also overweight that get uncomfortable because they either want to or haven’t tried and get reminded of that, or they’ve heard about me talking about it for a while now and they’re tired of it. There’s a worse reaction though. That one is from the people who couldn’t give you the time of day 6 months ago and all of a sudden they want to come up and “get all up in your business”. I have so many things I want to say to them. “I lost weight but I didn’t lose my mind” is one of them, among other phrases. I can deal with all the other reactions, the first ones I listed, because I can hopefully change those reactions – but I can’t change phony.
What bothers me the most with that is through all of this – especially in the last few years as I have learned to manage my bipolar disorder – the “me” you’ve seen & dealt with has at least been an honest one. “What you see is what you get” – I’ve been the same either fat or thinner. While I understand people having a certain physical type you’re attracted to, number 1, I’m taken, and you knew that last year AND the year before that and 2) You didn’t seem to think I was quite so “interesting” the last 10 times we talked. And by the way, my eyes are up here. Really? There’s flattery and there’s discomfort.
I guess I can somewhat understand. I am not a single man in a bar on the prowl. I’m really not “blaming” anyone and I’m not making judgments about their character at all. I’m there as either an employee or an entertainer, and these things happen in my personal interactions with people when I jump outside to smoke real quick. I like that people are friendly enough and that they find me friendly enough to talk to and there are some I have made friendships with. I guess I’m more surprised at the people that I’ve known a while who have definitely shifted their attitudes toward me to a much more physical way than before since the weight loss; I don’t know that I would have ever thought about changing the way I acted toward someone because of that factor. It’s just never really crossed my mind. Again, I’m at the bar for completely different reasons, and I’m not judging anyone. It’s my perception, and wholly my own. The attention is nice and flattering. My personal space…well I can decide who gets in that, right? You know what I mean.
There’s only been one time in my life that I’ve taken off a huge chunk of weight like this, but it was right at 92 pounds, so I’ve now surpassed that, and it was off in 3 months (on phen/fen) and had already started coming back by this time. I STILL want to lose about 38 more pounds. I think I can do it by the end of the year, and do it healthily in addition to toning really well. I also think that’s my greatest chance to keep it off. But I did not expect any negative effects from losing this weight. Really. And this has been a pretty profound “experiment” for me. A lot of stuff to process, not all of it easy. I wonder if any of you who have taken off a large amount of weight have experienced any of this? If so I’d love to hear about it.