Enthusiasm.

I miss my youthful enthusiasm. I'm not quite sure I can pinpoint exactly when it left me, floating away from me like a dandelion seed on the wind. It was suddenly just gone, vacated the premises.

I'm sure that it was the result of a variety of factors. Growing up is a tough process, full of bills and disappointments and responsibilities. It tends to beat the fun out of you with an invisible bat, one you can't see or hear or feel.

But, opposed to what it may seem, this isn't meant to be a depressing or sad post. It's one about hope, the hope that I'm on the path to regain some of that childhood sense of excitement I may have lost.

I'm 33, but I'm not quite sure how old I'm supposed to feel. Despite paying all (most) of my bills on time, I would rather sit on my couch with a good book or giggle with my friends than do something productive. I've lost touch with a lot of them over the last few years, mainly due to a serious bout of depression than rendered me slightly overweight and anxious and withdrawn.

Now, I can feel the thaw coming. I'm appreciating things more. I'm wanting to work on myself, my body, my health. I want to socialize, to get out of the house (sometimes).

It's nice to feel want although, as a Buddhist, I know I should work on being liberated from it as well. I'm just happy to feel it for now.

1/1/2015.

Last night was the first New Year's Eve in a long time that I chose to stay in, don comfy pajama pants and celebrate quietly with my wife. To be fair, it was also the first year that I've had a wife (yay)! It was amazing... relaxing, less worry about all the other drunk drivers on the road, more snuggles with the warm and furry ones that are most important to me (minus my mini-me who was with her father seeing Blue Man Group in Chicago).

Today was much the same. I, of course, made big resolutions. I want to lose 50#, but mostly get healthier. I want to do more yoga and meditate more. I want to write more (chiggity checking that off my list for the day). Overall, my goals are to clear out the nonsense on focus on breaking down my life to its barest, most basic essentials... love, peace and security.

Yes, I want to buy a house at some point. I'm working on my credit score and we've created a budget. But the things that are the most important to me are making sure I'm taking care of my temple. We only get one and I have definitely not been treating it right (to the tune of a 20# weight gain since the summer - mostly after getting my gallbladder out and being able to eat food again).

I'm going to be writing most days so be warned. :)

Here's to hoping your New Year's Eve and 2015 in general is MAGIC.

165.2#

After a crazy year of ups and downs with my health, I weighed in today at 165.2#. This means I have officially gained 10# since my gallbladder surgery in September and am 7# away from where I started two years ago.

Instead of choosing frustration, I'm choosing action. It isn't just because my wife and I are going on a cruise in January, it isn't because I want to look better in jeans... I want to FEEL better. I know that my food choices and lack of activity can be most linked to laziness and comfort. I need to get off my ass, use the gym membership we're paying for, eat food that actually nourishes me instead of making me feel sluggish and make positive changes FOR ME.

I feel like I have a good shot at it this time.

Even though I have changed into pajamas, my clothes still smell like bonfire. It's imbued into my hair, my skin, my fingernails... and, although I could shower again, I like it that way.

Tonight might very well be the last birthday bonfire I have with my grandparents.

We've been doing them as long as I can remember, since I was a child. I grew up around that bonfire, went from eating hot dogs to veggie dogs and back again (and since back to veggie dogs!). I matured, came out of the closet, got married, got divorced, had a kid... and every year I knew I could go back to that place and have one thing in my life be stable.

It's difficult to admit that my grandparents are getting older because it's even harder to admit that I am. When my grandmother said that this may be the last bonfire because it's too difficult for them to set up and haul around everything needed to prepare ahead of time, it made me sick to my stomach. I understand and respect it... they have earned it... but it still makes me sad.

Writer's block.

It's been awhile. Too long, in fact. I can't even remember the last time I sat down to write and flex my muscles. 

This makes it hard to pick the habit back up. I've started a few entries only to immediately erase them. My mind doesn't seem to be working with the written word as easily as it used to. 

Obviously, I'm devastated. Logically I understand that writing is a muscle, that it can atrophy without use. But to sit down in front of the computer and have it be so completely blank, that flashing cursor laughing in my face, is difficult to say the least. 

It's not that I don't have much to say; it's just that I can't seem to find a way to say it.

Today, I started back on a journey towards health. Over the course of wedding planning and honeymooning, I gained back a substantial portion of what I had lost the year before. I'm now sitting uncomfortably back at 165#, which sets my body dysmorphic disorder on a sharp, downward spiral. I am convinced that my backside is 20 feet wide, that my jiggling arms could create a tsunami... all completely unrealistic things that my brain convinces me are encyclopedic truth.

I set all that aside today and I ran. I didn't run fast, I didn't run far, but I ran. It felt great. I was hot and sweaty, but I was doing something positive for my body for the first time in a long time. I know it's a process, but it's a process that I am fully ready for.

The one thing I have a hard time with is justifying my desire to lose weight with my feminism. It's difficult to really suss out my reasons... am I brainwashed by society to think that I'm not attractive or worth anything if I don't fit into a certain size jeans? Is it really about wanting to be happier for myself? Although I can say that I would feel better having lost 20#, I know from experience that I wasn't very happy even when I weighed 107# in high school (with an eating disorder).

I've always been happy to be a mold breaker and I would have hoped that getting older and gaining maturity would have help continue that pattern into my 30s. I've found that now I just get stuck in different molds - career, job, credit score...

But, for now, I'm going to throw myself into running. I'm going to focus on doing what I can to make myself feel better for me.

This kid...

I very strongly believe that raising a child is a perfect mix of nature versus nurture. You decide what is important for you and attempt to instill those values into your child while, at the same time, understanding that your child may also choose to value other things as he or she gets older.

Although, years ago, my child responded to a question about what I've taught her over the years by saying that she knows to be "responsible with [her] money and [her] vagina," I've always known at some point she was going to go her own way. I've been prepared to have a cheerleader, a Republican... anything that is polar opposite of who I have grown to be over the years.

What I ended up with, at least so far, has been a miniature version of myself. Case in point, we rearranged her room this evening and she quickly put up her two Girls Rock! posters and a Crimethinc poster above her desk. I couldn't be more proud. Of all the things I want to instill in her, a strong sense of self and belief that being a female ISN'T a weakness are some of the most important.

She's going to need all the help she can get in this world, unfortunately. I want her to go out there and grab the world by its neck and not be afraid to tell people (not ask!) what she wants.

I'm pretty sure she's getting there. :)