Tag: diary
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Still missing you, Murph.
It’s now four years since the death of my chubby little butterball to cancer. While I’ve since lost another one that I arguably loved even more, Murph was the first loss I experienced for any of my “adult” pets. It was both unexpected and isolated from any comparable pain. It was difficult to endure, but…
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Missing you, Princess
It was one year ago today that I laid to rest the first American I ever loved. Meeting her was a chance connection that changed my life. My wife was still a university student at the time, and on one of my many trips to campus to pick her up I saw an ad on…
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The Eve of Six Months
Six months ago I decided that the next day (Nov 3), my whole life would change. I would start counting calories. I might even exercise. Maybe. I wanted to avoid that, if it was possible to lose the weight just by eating less. What a difference six months can make in a life, if you…
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The Real Magic of Holidays
It’s Easter Sunday and I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to have an 8 year old child that still believes in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus. The future may try to prove me wrong, but I think it’s better to preserve Magic in children’s lives for as long as possible. There is…
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Never Too Late
I never learned to skate. My father gave up on trying to teach me because I was never athletically gifted. This has stayed with me my whole life. I barely played sports, and didn’t try when I did because I never believed I could be any good. My wife bought me skates last week and…
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A New Direction
For the last 3 months I’ve weighed myself every day. I’ve obsessed about numbers. I’ve been angry when my scale has been borrowed and not returned (not by the borrowing per se, but because it’s usually locked in someone’s bedroom and they won’t be getting up until the crack of noon). I’ve even allowed myself…
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What’s Happening to Me?
The changes I’m undergoing since beginning this food and fitness regimen are more than just physical. They’re mental. They’re emotional. I don’t recall such a sustained period of high functioning without periods of stress, depression or exhaustion… well, not since before parenthood, anyway. 🙂 It’s not that my circumstances have changed significantly. If anything, life…
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The Gift of Yourself
It’s six weeks since I started my diet and exercise regimen… I am now just over 200 pounds, or nearly 22 pounds down from where I started. To her credit, my wife took our wedding vows literally, loving me for better and for worse. At the beginning of November 2011, I’d certainly never looked worse. …
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Life’s Wake-Up Call
Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part…