Long, dark winter

I've been away (mentally) for too long.  The pressure of finishing grad school is really getting to me. I've only taken one short run in the past three months.  Health issues are starting to press again.  Weight is still hovering on a plateau, though, so that's the only good news (beside the fact that I'm still upright and taking nourishment).  I've really come to hate the short days of winter, so am glad to see spring finally here (and even a bit early in our area).  I'm in a funk I just can't shake.

I have only 11 weeks of classes left, though I think I have a break in there somewhere for Independence Day.  I walk in May, but am not very excited about it (but that's another story).

Stress levels at home are high.  My fuse has been short, and I feel like a prisoner in my own home: every evening is defined by needing to do homework.  Unfortunately, I get distracted far too easily, putting me behind, and that adds to the stress.

[Sigh!]

The only thing that has kept me going is knowing that Mrs. F and I will be taking a canoe trip together in May, to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary.  It will be our first four-day weekend together, without the kids (and without a schedule of family or friends to visit) in ten or more years.  We're headed up into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA for short).  We'll put in as early as we can on a Friday morning, and paddle out on the following Monday.

Mrs. F has continued running.  She was already faster than me while we were doing the C25K program.  Now, I don't stand a chance of running with her again.  She's up to six miles, and I think I'd struggle through one now.  I don't want her to feel bad about it, but it just makes it so much harder for me.  This was really working when she and I were getting up and squeezing our half-hour in early in the morning.  With longer runs and longer times now, however, it's best for her to run mid-afternoon, right after the kids get home from school.  That's right before I get home from work, and I simply have no energy to run at that time.

I ran across an article in Newsweek (online) about Lesley Kinzel, who blogs at Fatshionista.com.  She was featured because of all of the recent discussions on childhood obesity.  She was overweight as a child, and it became central to her self-identity at a very young age.  In reading her story, I realized the same was true for me: from an early age, I was always "the fat kid", and that became how I see myself.  I was always "the fat kid", and, even as an adult, I still see myself as "the fat kid".

The real kicker is that I actuall dropped to a healthy weight for a while.  During my senior year in high school, I was studying karate and was biking everywhere.  Looking back on photos now, I see that I looked pretty good, but I still saw myself as "the fat kid".  How is it that we can get a self-image so far ingrained into our being that it becomes the permanent filter through which we see ourselves and our lives?

I have no clue what I weighed when that picture was taken.  All I now know is that I look at it and I want to cry.  Had I only been able to see myself as I was, versus how I perceived myself to be, it might have helped me keep the weight off.

About four years later I was around 230 lbs.  A year or two after that, I was 260 lbs.

Yet, to me, I felt no different at 260 lbs. than I did when that photo was taken.

Even now, as I hover just under 290 lbs., I feel just as fat as I've always felt--sometimes even bigger--even though I know my peak weight was 348 lbs!

There's a lot of pain tied up inside somewhere.  I hate being "the fat kid".  Right now, however, I have no energy or motivation to go out there and fight for a change.

This is how I looked during the summer of 2009, before I started the C25K program.  I can see the difference between the pictures, but my mind has always seen me the same way, regardless of how large I was. When Mrs. F posts family picutres online today, I still cringe.  I don't like the way I look.  I never have liked the way I look, because I remember that no one likes "the fat kid".

Here we were after our second 5k, the Howard Lake Turkey Tagalong.  This is after completing C25K and proving I could run over three miles.  Yet, I still see myself as "the fat boy". How can I ever reprogram that image? How can I ever get beyond that identity? I know many of you will think of your own journeys, and the things that worked for you.  I thought I had found a new life, but being "the fat boy" has been like a boat anchor.  The way I figure it, I'll  probably need to start C25K all over again, because I don't know if I can even run a mile at this point.  The bike has been in the garage, too.

Am I feeling sorry for myself? Is that all this is? Is it just a pity party? If it is, I wish I knew how to stop the music.  If this is a carnival ride, I want to get off. I'm madly envious of the success Mrs. F has achieved.  I just feel powerless to follow in her footsteps.  I'm back to feeling like I'll be trapped this way for the rest of my life, and I know that means it will be a shorter life.  That just feeds the depressive cycle.  I find myself craving more sweets and comfort foods because I'm feeling down.  I know they're no good for me, but I want them anyway.  I just want a little relief now--I'm not thinking about the long-term.  As I'm writing this, I'm beating myself up even more, because I realize how odd it must sound for a guy to be rambling on like this.  This struggle, and my self image, don't help me feel masculine.  Do other overweight guys simply never feel this way, or are they stronger than I so as to shrug it all off?  I wish it were possible for the old Simon and Garfunkel song to be true: "I am a rock. I am an island. / And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries."