Free Lunch Tomorrow

I started becoming truthful with others about where I’m at physically, mentally and emotionally. Actually I only told my wife and best friend. Everyone I know believes I have a weight issue. I do, but it’s “a symptom of a much greater problem.” This was never more evident than when I overheard friends I hadn’t seen in twenty years talking about how huge I had become. Talk about an awkward silence when they realized I was standing there. Even my doctor believes, “There’s no other hope for someone like you but lap band surgery.” “Someone like me” I have been officially categorized. That still wouldn’t address why I binge eat and I doubt it would limit the amount I consume. I have met two people that had gastric bypass surgery and they are still obese after a couple of years. One almost died of complications. They never knew it wouldn’t take away the obsession with food.

In the past I used my alcoholism as an excuse to hide behind. If you admit you have a disease and ask for help, people will rally around you. You can manipulate that to your advantage by gaining sympathy instead of condemnation. All is done to relieve one of the pressures to do something NOW. If I relapse it’s not my fault, I have a disease that’s ‘cunning, baffling and powerful.’ People love to see effort and despise apathy. They will stay beside you until they realization that you really don’t care to change. Then your temporary reprieve is suspended and it’s time to move on.

A coach once told me that making a come-back is my biggest thing. I always counted on tomorrows. Having coasted through everything from school, sports, relationships and work only to excel when needed, the fire and drive of consistency has never been there. Once I fought for a starting position with blood, sweat and tears only to move to another state after my dad was transferred. I had won the position but never reaped the rewards. I never fought like that with such drive and determination again. Perhaps that explains the internal inability to care much about anything. I don’t know. That seems too packaged. I want to care and I want that drive but it seems too have evaporated from me entirely.

I recall while in the Marines I had difficulty with a run, and my sergeant yelled a hypothetical motivation that my platoon was under fire and was in need my .50 cal or they would all die. I looked up from my gasps and yelled, “Fuck them!” He was clearly stunned and didn’t speak anymore as we caught up to the rest. I guess he concluded that if I didn’t care then he would do the caring for me. My transfer to another platoon soon followed. Again, people love to see effort and despise apathy. Perhaps that has something to do with it? I feel like it’s a good surface scratcher but something runs deeper. The question now is do I want to know?

During a recent visit to my diabetes doctor, I asked point blank how much longer I can continue with uncontrolled blood sugars before it starts affecting me (as if it hasn’t already with neuropathy in my legs and feet). Again, it would seem I was asking to stage a big come-back. The comment was IF you can get this under control you SHOULD be ok. There’s that hope of tomorrow that I SHOULD be able to... I have attempted for twelve years to get diabetes under control and I’m still not able to. The doctor and nutritionist were not sure why I was experiencing major edema and a host of other ailments and I finally told them the truth, I’m a compulsive overeater and I binge regularly. Instantly I hoped that this wouldn’t be another reprieve seeking stunt as I did with alcoholism in college and in the work place.

I have been giving the doctor and nutritionist insulin and the food amounts consumed daily that I planned on implementing the following day. I was planning for a tomorrow that never comes. The doctor semi-yelled, “This is your tomorrow!” Every time I had a doctor’s visit I would focus on the seriousness of the disease and pledge to begin tomorrow right after I ate what I wanted on the way home that day. I need to wake up. This is insanity at its best. Thankfully they understood my deception and denial then adjusted my medications having finally been given the truth. I could tell that they had been here many times with others. The exchanged glance lead me to conclude that many “like me” never see that tomorrow. They suggested a psychologist. That may help determine why the necessity of ‘right living’ that would determine life or death seems to be wishful thinking that denial shoves in a closet.

When I was young I made fun of fat people. One kid in particular cried over my harassing and said, “There’s something wrong with my metabolism!” and I said, “Yeah, and there’s something wrong with that Twinkie you’re putting in your mouth too.” At the time I would eat a whole box of Twinkies behind the garage of my childhood home to escape the chaos of screaming in the house. My weight didn’t show due to sports activities. Now I’m on the receiving end of such comments and the most painful event was when a woman refused to sit next to me on an airplane. She made a spectacle and the stewardess tried to guide her quietly to another seat. She said loud enough for everyone to hear, “They shouldn’t make you sit next to people like that.” I did nothing. What could I say? Had I not directed that venom towards others in the past? I had officially been exposed to having crossed the fence and become one of “those” people.

Karma’s a bitch.