Nervous Energy

Ever since I arrived in Russia, I have just had this extra energy, nervous energy. It is not the energy I want. I have been clumsy, really clumsy. I have run into countless door frames, there was the time I got hit by the automatic sliding door on a bus, I slipped in the bath while trying to wash my feet, I knocked over the brand new coffee maker, and then today I gracefully was “lifting weights” with the watermelon I was about to cut up as it slipped through my fingers and fell on the floor in an homage to a Gallagher performance. None of these things have caused or will cause me much trouble in life but the amount of shame I have around all these small actions is just crippling. I know that at the end of my life when I am thinking back I am not going to remember July 17th, 2010 as the day that I dropped the watermelon, but in that instant, and for a few hours more as I was cleaning and recovering from the explosion that comes with a six foot drop, it felt like that was all there was. There was the thought of, “I can’t do anything right. All I am in clumsy, I am like a little kid.” Why couldn’t I just grab the melon out of the refrigerator and put it on the table to slice it? Why did I suddenly become this jester who has to act out with all of these antics to make others laugh? Why couldn’t I just be me? When I have been in this position other times I usually don’t act out with as big of actions, I just mainly stick to heavy sarcasm and lots of smiling and pretending I’m fine. Why the switch? Do I feel that need to show how good I am that much more? All I know is that whatever the motives, my tactics are not working. There is no joy in seeing a smashed watermelon on the floor, and there is nothing but shame knowing how pissed the two people you live with are because I know how pissed I’d be. I wouldn’t be really pissed, just that, “what the fuck is going on here” pissed that passes quickly. Everyone has the moments in life where they shine, and more and more over the past few months I have experienced those moments, but now I experiencing the moments that we try to forget, the moments where we turn into “that guy”. There is one thing that gave me a slight break from all of my shame and provided a good little chuckle. As I was taking my second shower of the day because I got so sweaty after being on my hands and knees cleaning this blood red floor with Mr. Clean, a bucket, and an old rag, the thought that popped into my head was that besides myself and my girlfriend the only other person who saw me make a fool of myself in the kitchen as the watermelon was dropping in slow motion and my jaw was dropped yelling, “nooooooo” was the stalker I just recently learned of that has been obsessed with my girlfriends sister and loves to peak inside with his really nice pair of binoculars. Glad to know that someone who didn’t have to deal with the consequences could enjoy the show!

First Impressions

Before I get started, let me just calm everyone who was concerned. You no longer have to worry… The Mullet is still alive and well in Russia!!!

So, let me get everyone caught up really quickly… I’m in RUSSIA! It is just so amazing. One, I never thought that I would really move to another country, and two I never thought that country would be Russia. Alright, now that we have that taken care of lets actually talk about what it is like. In every letter I have written to my family or friends, I have been sure to mention how wide-eyed I am walking around. There are so many things that are just the same in a place that is half way around the world from my home, but then, when you take away the physical things the differences can be overwhelming. I am in a place of constant judgment. It is a hard place to be in, but a place that I feel is common to all when in a new place. I am trying not to make my judgments from a “better than position”, but rather just something that is part of my process as I take in so much that is foreign to me. I was able to pull back and slow down, see how much instant judgment I was making and realized that what I don’t understand is for me to try and understand so I can then make a further decision on it. I guess I have just relied on others to always prove their case to me about their actions and try to convince me that they were right, but who am I to demand that. I was raised in a house where every action, answer, decision, and breath was judged. It left no room to just be, and you were always on the defensive. What I now know is that it is very hard to see the beauty in life when your always defending yours.

Alcohol is everywhere. You can buy beer in hot dog style carts, you can get plastic jugs filled with draft beer at the grocery store, you can board a bus three sheets to the wind with an open container, you can stand in line in the post office and have a tall boy open and waiting for you to finish your business in your tweed jacket pocket, and you can walk down the street gracefully stumbling through traffic as you knock back your thirty sixth beer of the morning. I was actually surprised how little vodka there was and how much beer there was. But it is not just the sheer amount that I have noticed, it is the mentality of it. While being interviewed by a state doctor to check if I was in acceptable health to obtain a temporary residence permit the question asked was not, “do you drink?”, but, “when did you start?”. It was not, “do you have a problem with alcohol?”, it was, “do you have problems functioning(will it interfere with work)?”

As I said above, I am in the process of applying for a temporary residence permit, which is just like a temporary green card in the States. I just keep checking off things on my list of situations I never thought I’d been in… this one is “Emigrating to another country”. Not only is it a weird idea to me but also to others. People can’t seem to understand why an American would want to be an immigrant. When I explain that it is really for love it also confuses them, I mean they understand, but its just not a luxury they have. Most people in the world cannot just pick up and follow someone they love. Instead decisions to leave ones family behind is only made is search for a better life, a better wage, or the option to support said family back home. If there is one thing I am becoming more aware of here it is how lucky I am. At an outing with a large group of new friends last weekend I was asked if I was concerned with weather or not I would be able to have a good job and house and be successful. I said “NO!” and I realized in the instant that I saw all of there reactions just how grateful I was. I am a white male, American, and have two parents with college degrees, and a mother with two or three(I should know this) graduate degrees. All things are in my favor. I am not saying that I will touch down in the states and a red carpet will be rolled out for me, but I am able to sit comfortably with the belief that I will be successful in life, not only monetarily, but in the much more important aspects… Love, Friendship, Happiness, Family. Someone once asked me if I would like to live forever and I said, “No!” I guess I say that a lot. But when he asked why I wouldn’t like the opportunity to do things over constantly, to fix mistakes, to have the opportunity to do anything I wanted because time wouldn’t run out – the only thought in my head was because I knew that this life was going to be so great. That I was going to be happy, that I was going to fulfill most of my dreams. I hope that my attitude does not make me lazy, but I think that while there is an opportunity for me to do all of this work, spiritually, physically, that it will just come.That was a long tangent, so back to the issue at hand. This application is crazy. The required documents and tests are jaw dropping. This list is long and time consuming. Today I really felt like what I make up immigrants must feel like in the states. I felt confused and not treated with respect. I felt as if the things that were taking place would just not be acceptable to citizens, not because they were atrocious but because they just weren’t pretty. We have levels of acceptability, and when I think of what must be accepted for “second class” citizens it sucks. Again, today wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t comfortable, it wasn’t a situation I would be in if it were not necessary. So after all of today, there is still more. A lot more, a lot of red tape. Most of this is redundant. Most of it is not set up to be smooth or easy. Not every form is available where it should be, and there is not central office to do everything required at, and by the way, I have no car. My feet are tired, I have spent way to much time on buses, and I am so fed up with lines, or the lack there of. There are two types of lines that I have experienced while here. The first is the better of the two, but that is like asking which torture method I prefer, water boarding or Chinese water torture. It consists of an actual line which is great, but people have no qualms about cutting. They will do it and stare you down while they do it. And I have no level of intimidation here, I have no language skills to back it up, or to even say excuse me, I can just sigh loudly which does nothing. I hate it. But the second type is ridiculous. This was mostly what I experienced today. I call it the moth to the flame queue. The door opens, or the woman behind the counter calls out for the next person and everyone just bum rushes to the front. There is no efficiency and there is not personal space. There was a point while I was in my fourth moth to the flame queue today where I imagined myself crouching down and exploding like the incredible hulk does when he changes with all of the people around me pushing into me just flying away from me in every direction as my arms flail and my roar was heard. That was not the case. But man oh man did I want it to happen. I do want to say at the correct bequest of my love that not all Russians cut in line. And not that very Tajikistani cuts or can’t form a line but she was the only Russian in the group today. I am not speaking for a people, just what I have experienced.  So while I still have a lot more “lines” to stand in until I am done with this process it might be all for not. I am in a city that doesn’t have a large demand for the temporary residence permits, especially when compared to cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg, so most of the applications are accepted. That was what I was counting on. What I was not expecting was the shock that as an American they were surprised I was applying for the permit and because I was not from a country that was formerly part of the Soviet Union that I have to meet with the director of Immigration Services and be approved to apply. So what this means is that it is all up to this one guy if I can stay in the country or not. I guess I am just supposed to learn a little more about powerlessness now.

There is so much more going on, and I will keep you updated as much as possible. I really do like the writing once I sit down to do it. Please leave some comments, I would love to hear reactions. It great to be heard!

Finally Got The Grelin Of My Back

No I didn’t misspell a word in my title. Grelin is the stuff hunger is made from. 85% of it is made in the part of my stomach that was removed. That means that at this point in time I am not hungry. I haven’t been in quite a long time. Its just amazing. I didn’t believe it when my surgeon told me it was something that would happen but it’s true. I thought that my mental hunger, my mental urges would be driving my physical hunger and for that matter driving me mad. I have to remind myself to eat. It is actually becoming a serious thing I need to look at. I have been relying on myself to tell me when I am hungry but since my food intake is limited I really need to watch my diet and make sure I am getting enough protein. I’m telling you that this great. It is allowing for me to concentrate on everything else. I am surprised how much I used to think about food. Or at least how much of a preoccupation it was. Anyways, I will step of my soapbox for now and tell you about my awesome news. I am a proud new member of the Century Club. I have lost over 100 pounds. I actually thought that I had hit it right on the nose today when I weight but I was wrong. I was reading my medical history that I had just gotten from my doctor(a very interesting read, I recommend everyone read theirs) and saw that at my highest I was at 452. So that means I am at a total loss of 102 pounds. As I was talking to my girlfriend about it today and she asked me how it feels. I didn’t really have an answer. I mean all the physical things I can feel, but those were gradual. All of the changes have been gradual. Don’t get me wrong, I am full of pride and joy, but I wonder if I have really had it set in yet. I’ll let you know if that changes. Anyways… I am happy, and I will continue to be happy the more I loose. The more I turn into the man I am supposed to be.

One Week Out

It has been one week since I went under the knife. I am feeling the best I have felt since I awoke from surgery. I have a lot of energy and have been doing a lot more than I expected I would be this soon out. I have advanced my diet from full liquids to a mix of liquids and pureed foods. I just don’t feel hungry most of the time. I actually have to remind myself to eat. That is the update for now. I thought when I sat down to right I would have more to say but I guess not.

Hospital bed

I made it through. I’m blogging with my left hand which has my iv in it. I’m also prbably dosing. I’ve been out of surgery fo 12 hours. My only job now is to not drink which sucks because that’s all I want. I’ve never wanted so much in my life. I talked to a lot of very loving people today. I really felt loved. Thank you all. I was able to talk to Lena just now and it made me feel so good. I love that woman so much. She is my other half. She really gives me a lot of strent to carry on through the hard stuff. Glad I’m blogging again. Bye world. It’s back to sleep for me.

It’s The Final Countdown

Only one night until surgery. Monday at 7:15 I will walk through the doors of George Washington University Hospital and start the pre-surgery routine. I will get my blood drawn for one final test, speak with the anesthesiologist and pray whenever I have downtime. I am ready for this. I am ready to be the man that I have envisioned myself being. It is time for me to start acting like that man. Those things are much easier said than done. For me and my addiction, it’s easy to fall back on the abuse of my childhood, the pain and shame that I have made it through. But I don’t only want to be a survivor. I want to triumph over these things. I want to step into sobriety fully, I want to embrace it. I want to experience life without the pain and burden of the shame that I have been walking around with for so long. So here is to making it to the surgery as healthy as I  can be. While I have been writing this blog post I have taken many breaks. First I started by working out in the room, doing drop sets of push ups, sit ups, dips, jumping jacks, and sumo squats. Then I browsed the room service menu battling back and forth with myself about if I should order the carrot cake and the chicken wrap, which I would only order because its “HEALTHY”. Then instead of calling room service I sent a text to my brother and called my little sister who walked me through it. Sometimes that is all it takes, reaching out. But shortly after that I found myself feeling much stronger and opened the mini bar for a soda and found myself opening a Nutragrain bar and taking a large bite of it. I chewed about three times and then spit it out and threw the rest away. I guess these are the final tests being laid before me. These are the things that I can look back at and be proud of not fully succumbing to. My friend Sarah and I were once talking about marriage in her religious community. She was telling me how once her friends were married she would loose touch with them for about a year. This was not because her friends were rude or she unlikeable but because in that first year of marriage, the newly weds devoted their free time to laying the groundwork for their lives together. Only spending time with each other, consciously thinking about their relationship and the decisions that they would soon make. It was a very poetic thing for me to hear. It sounds wonderful, something that I hope to do when I get married. But this also came to my mind recently when thinking of surgery. This year after surgery I am going to lay the ground work for the rest of my life. I have made it through the initial phase building up to the surgery, but I am now entering a much more important phase. I will now make choices that will either support the desires and ideals that I have formed over the last six months or take actions that will work against them. It is time to lay the ground work, it is time to work with myself instead of against me. My Sensei has three main principles behind his teachings, Consistency, Moderation, and Tradition. I try to take these with me every day. With these three things I hope to find success in my life, in this year. More to come once I get out of recovery. I hope to hear from you all.

The Long Awaited Return

Hey everyone. First let me say how good it feels to be writing. I have had a hard few weeks and hindsight makes me wonder if they would have been easier if I didn’t drop as many of my tools as I did. The power was shut off in my apartment building while they were updating the central heat system, they also choose to do this on the coldest and wettest day we have had this fall… Thanks management. So I am writing this on my iPhone in the warm confines of my car waiting for my personal training session. Just an update for everyone, my current weight loss is 35 pounds. That is a huge number and I am proud of it but I know it could of been higher. I am not saying this in a self punishing way but my actions and choices directly correlate with my weight loss. The first week I started I lost 13 pounds, then the weekly weight loss started declining. So I am hoping that by the end on next week I will have lost fifteen pounds. A new goal for myself. If we talk and I just make loud mumbling noises it’s because I worked out so hard that even my voice box is sore. I’ll let you all know. Let’s do a little history of where I have been. As I wrote in a previous post my grandmother passed away. My family and I went down to North Carolina for her funeral. I didn’t realize until the middle of the service how much I had been affected by her death. It really hit me hard. It brought up memories of my other grandmothers death ten years ago, and showed my how much I had left to grieve. In the past ten years I have reached many different milestones in The grieving process, and each new milestone I think that there is no more left to grieve. This is not true. My body has not been and is not ready to let go of all of that pain. It is too much! So the day of he funeral I don’t think I had ever had a day were I consciously wanted to have some sort of medication so bad. Everyone around me was medicating, drinks to my left, food to my right, and man oh man cigarettes on the brain. I just wanted something, something that took the edge off, so what did I do, I went for the diet coke, I know it sounds funny but it’s a drug. It has caffeine and fake sugar, what else could you ask for? I poured myself a nice cup and downed quickly, and when I went back for more the bottle was empty. Panic struck… I knew all I could have was water, dun dun dunnnn( dramatic sound effects). My guess is that every one medicating with food didn’t have any room for extra soda calories so they all went for the diet, damn youuuu. But seriously, it was hard, and I felt angry. I have been at bars were people congratulated my sobriety with a raise of thief glass, but I have never been in a place where people were raising their glass and their plate. And just a quick disclaimer, I am not angry or upset with anyone, well not any one who was there, just for the circumstances. I had nothing and just ha to walk through the pain. I don’t think I have ever been so present in my life. Only days later did the feelings of joy wash over me. There was nothing that could allow me to not be present, and I am thankful for that. What I mean is that there was no way for me to pick up a plate an have all of the food that was offered, not with everyone aware of my situation, not only would they stop me but my fear stopped me. I tried to think, what if I had cake, would everyone be disappointed? Would every one just judge me or would they understand, would they understand but still judge me? There are few times when my story writing brain and self judging ways have been a benefit to me and this was one of them. I learned that day that I could make it, that I could survive. Once is not enough for me to truly believe this, but it is just part of the process. Creating memories of times when I let myself and god make the right choice, were I didn’t succumb to the addiction. One minute at a time, one memory at a time, one day at a time. Glad to blogging again and hope to hear some comments. Will post again soon.

Eating My Own Cancer

So I am happy to give you yet another installment of my journey. My journey is still sucessful and positive, don’t let the title sway your thinking. The title statement is one of power and sucess. It is also a rebut to a line in one of my new favorite songs from Bloc Party’s new album, Intamacy. The song is called Biko and in it there is a line, “if I could eat your cancer I would but I can’t”. Now in a dark way it is romantic and loving. I assume that anyone who has had a loved one in pain has wanted to take away their pain, I have. But I have learned that even if you could take it away sometimes it is best left alone. My situation is a pure example of this. There are times when wish it was not me walking this path, wishing for a surrogate, and my more frequent fantasy is that I cross my legs, fold my arms, and nod my head in a I Dream Of Genie fashion and wake up with all of the benifits and memories of the struggle without going through it. The latter closley resembles how I have treated my life for so long. But not any more. I am taking my life back. I am eating my cancer, it is just in salad and smoothie form. The title runner up for this entry was, “Burger To My Lips”. I was sharing with my brother that if by next week(September 25th) I have lost atleast 30 pounds then I can schedual my surgery. It was a two part motivational call I recieved from my doctor. I am going to work my ass off to loose over the thirty pounds required in this coming 11 days. And then once a date is set for surgery, It will be the carrot to my donkey. But as I was telling him that it couldn’t of come at a better time for me, that I was struggling he asked if there was a burger to my lips as the phone rang. It wasn’t that bad, actually I had made a verbal recommitment to my girlfriend about sticking with the smoothies just that morning. But, it was in my head where I was struggling, unable to grasp doing this for even one more day let alone another few weeks. I don’t think that this phone call was a mere coincidence, but an intervention from god. Sunday I was meditating about the third step prayer and the statement, there is nothing god and I cannot get through together, and I really came out the other side with a renewed sense of relief knowing that I had my back covered. So I’ll end with that prayer…

God, I offer myself to Thee-to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!

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So… I was about to take a shower before heading out for the days activities when I just couldn’t resist weighing myself. I have a very topsy-turvy relationship with the scale. I have given it a lot of power in the past, if it’s a number that’s too high I completly loose motivation, I have a reason to binge, if it’s a good number then it can be used as an excuse to binge. But the latter is not so simple, for me it comes as a rationalization of me telling myself, “you’ve done so good that it won’t hurt to do a, b, or c.”. But underneath that is a fear of sucess and a want to self sabatoge. I have never allowed myself a consistent long lasting sucess when it comes to food or weight, I’m afraid of what it could mean. For you non obese people out there I’ll explain, as much as I hate my extra weight, I hate the way it looks, how it makes me feel, how it causes others to react, how bad it is for me, I love it. There is no way around it. I know Iove it because the whole time I have hated it, I have kept, I have worn it, I have endured all of the pain and the sadness that came with it, I owned it, I let it become me. I needed too, it was my protection, it was the most powerful wepon I had against my fear. That is why the events of Friday night were so powerful and incredible. After my day long high of loosing so much weight I was coming down, and I obviously came down hard. I was sitting at home watching tv, and the urge to eat came over me. I battled with it, saying no no no, but then caving and saying okay, well maybe a salad. Ten minutes later I had just hit the confirm order button from a chinese restaurants websites’ order form. I was okay with it, I was ready, and all of the justification that I would need was ready. I had not justified something that much in a long time, while I was waiting for the knock on the door from the delivery man, I really believed it was okay. But it was not, let me hush those of you who are thinking that it would be just one time or that one bowl of chinese noodles isn’t going to kill me your wrong. It would kill me, because it would lead me down that path again, the one to justified binges, the path that includes a day with multiple visits to a fast food restaurant, scary weight, sad days, and a fear far worse than I am going through now. So when I got that call telling me that my delivery driver was downstairs and asking if I could meet him I went down stairs. In the elevator I made my decision, I was not going to do it, this is not going to happen. I pulled out my phone and brought up my brothers number, ready to call. I walked to the front door of my building took the food from the mans had, signed my recipt and left him a tip, pressed the call button on my phone and walked hurridley to the trash room. Seconds after the trash room door cloesed behind me I was talking with my brother, expressing the fear the, humor, the confusion that I had just experianced, but for me it was more than all of those things, it was a triumph. I believe that during the course of my journey I will unfortunatley have some failures, some meals where I was not able to see through my false justifications, but I will have more triumphs and victories. I am happy for that night, that situation, and the situations that will surely come knocking on my door soon, because when I am strong enough to see through all of that bullshit, then I am able to know that I didn’t die!!!

More Bang For Your Buck

So, it is midnight and I cannot sleep although I was fighting sleep just three hours ago. So let me give you a quick update on the last five days before I set in on the topic. I went to my initial weight loss surgery consult and I was denied, well I was postponed. I am to over weight for weight loss surgery, yes you read that correctly. It is ironic, depressing, a big punch in the face, and something that nobody wants to hear especially me. But its also turning out to be a bit of a blessing. I was relying on this surgery to be the end all cure all of my disease which in no way would work. In order for me to find any success with my surgery I need to find success on my own. My nurse practitioner put me on a protein smoothie diet, so I am now consuming 1,200 to 1,400 calories a day. This includes smoothies and one salad each day. Today was day five, and let me tell you, I felt like it was day 5,000. I just wanted it to be over. I was tired, restless, irritable, and discontent. Oh yeah, and I was fucking hungry. I am now a person who allows myself to be hungry, but five days ago that would never happen. I was the hungriest I have ever been in my life today. And I survived. So the break down of this is that I should be loosing about a pound or a pound and a half a day, give or take a little here and there. I need to drop 50 pounds to be eligible for the surgery. I will be keeping in touch with the surgeon so when I hit the magic number I will get on the surgery table. But now to the topic at hand, but first tell me what you think of the new shirt I have designed, too simple or just right? On the back it will have my name like a jersey and 50 as my number. I’m diggin it. So I was talking with my sister today about an attraction to food that offers more bang for your buck. The foods I’m talking about include fast food, specials, whole foods/Costco samples, free items, delivery items, and for the family members reading this blog GOTTA BREAD(sp?). This belief that this food is some how better or more attractive is from the deepest part of my childhood. All of my comfort foods are based off of this belief. The times my family bonded were around large quantities of cheap food, gorging our faces, numbing out the world. Sunday 39 cent cheeseburgers from McDonald’s, a haven for my family to flock too. This is a such a huge part of my addiction, more is better than less, full is better than hungry, and there is nothing better than being full and doing it on the cheap. Spending money on myself to live in a healthy manner would just be ridiculous… wouldn’t it? NO NO NO, I am worth this, I am worth the money, the time, the effort, the support. I just have to ask for it. So, that’s it for now. I will fill you all in on the struggle of my smoothie diet next time but I just don’t have enough energy tonight. Goodnight all…

D