In the past weeks I've written several blogs that were deleted because people said that they were offensive. Maybe I should take a hint, but I guess I'm just stubborn. With all of the things I've been through could it possibly be that I have a small amount of bitterness and cynicism stored up? You bet! The irony is that I have believed that one of my better character traits was that I try to find the best in people and have faith in them. I guess I wasn't doing that on the inside. Let's take a look at the facts.
Last night Jackie and I went out to dinner for her birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU GORGEOUS, WONDERFUL WOMAN!!! I LOVE YOU MORE THAN LIFE!) with her parents and the nine year old. We decided to stop at Trader Joe's on the way home to pick up some vitamin supplements we were out of. As we were leaving, five minutes after they officially closed, two women in tiny miniskirts got out of a Mercedes SUV and walked by our car. I mentioned to Jackie that the "cheerleader twins" were a little late. Then, I watched as "Barbie and Skye" got to the front door only to find that it was locked. The dark haired one started stamping her little feet and yelling, obviously upset. I thought her little fit was HILARIOUS! Jackie and the kid both thought I was being a jerk. They were right, I was, but it doesn't change the fact that the whole display still has me chuckling.
Now look, I've spent most of my life being the ugly, fat guy (people's exhibit A) that always survived by making people laugh while silently loathing the pretty people here in southern California. Even when I moved to Phoenix, for five years, I couldn't get a break. Most of the people out there are people from CA trying to get away from the extremely high real estate prices and lackluster job market. I would secretly avoid people if I found out they were from CA, EVEN THOUGH I WAS BORN AND RAISED HERE! Most of my life I've felt ugly, unlovable and, more or less, like a sideshow freak. Now I'm two hundred pounds lighter, struggling to change careers and part of a perfectly glorious little family with the soul mate my heart has longed for. I've suddenly come to the realization that I'm one becoming one of "those people" that I used to avoid. I'm so sorry to say that I'm not dealing with it at all well. I am hurt, angry, confused and more than a little ashamed that I'm not a better person... just thinner.
This was supposed to be a forum that I could use to do a little writing and try and compile enough top ten lists to eventually put into book form and, hopefully, make a little money making people laugh. Instead, I've taken to using it as a place to vent things that I've only thought privately. Because of the reactions that it's had I'm understanding that my prejudice runs deeper than I thought and my foolish pride is preventing me from just letting it all go. Something tells me that wasn't what Jane Austen was thinking about when she came up with such a catchy title. But then, that book wasn't a bleeding insight into her private thoughts, was it? Isn't anonymity fun?
Where was I? Oh, yes, beating myself up. I don't fool myself. Most of the eyes taking in all this self effacing crap are close friends and family. And only a small few, at that. But, for some reason I feel like getting this entire mess out in the open, once and for all.
Buckle up, it's going to be a long, bumpy, pitiful ride through my twisted psyche.
I went to high school in Irvine, CA because my parents agreed that my twin brother and I would be better off not attending the local high school. The community was one that, during the ten years we lived there, went from a middle class, family-oriented community to one that was riddled with gangs, drugs and plenty of things that made us lock the doors at night. The only problem was that at an early age I learned to be ashamed of who I was. I went to school with a parade of people who were thin, very good looking, wealthy and privileged in so many ways. While I spent all my time outside of school working a full-time job my classmates were surfing, skiing, shopping at the mall and riding around in the shiny new cars they all got on their sixteenth birthday. I was the nerdy, overweight kid that they all took so much pride in looking down on. I wore loud Hawaiian shirts that I bought at the Salvation Army thrift store because I couldn't afford, or even find, trendy shirts in my size. My generic, K-Mart tennis shoes always had holes in them and I tried to layer sweater vests over my bulk to hide the extra pounds. I asked quite a few girls out but their answer was always the same. They didn't like me "that way" but I was "such a good friend." Translation: you're fat, ugly and I'm not physically attracted to you. I was lucky, though, in one regard. I made friends with some wonderful, loving people that didn't see the "freak" everyone else seemed to remind me I was. Those fantastic people are still my dearest friends, to this day, and are probably reading this, right now. Thank you, each one of you, I love you.
After High School my parents dragged us to northern CA for a couple of years and I went out and married, at age nineteen, the woman I lost my virginity to. We had just enough time for me to get her pregnant twice before she got tired of dealing with my anger and cynicism. During the time that I was with her I passed the three hundred pound mark and told myself that I had to do something about it. I did, I kept gaining. I spent four years after we separated, and I moved back to southern CA, trying to change into a better man, on the inside, and woo her back. It almost worked... until she told me that she wasn't attracted to me any more and that she'd found someone else. It broke my world into a million pieces.
Immediately after, I quickly got engaged to and married the next woman who was willing to "love the freak." During the four years we were together the illness we had foolishly thought she'd beaten when we got married relapsed and tore her apart... mentally, physically and emotionally. I worked eighty hour weeks, gained another hundred pounds, topped the four hundred pound mark and spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on medications and treatments that never seemed to be enough to ease her suffering. I didn't deal with my disillusionment and anger. Instead, I fed it a steady diet of sleep deprivation, regret, poor judgment, resentment and lots and lots of junk food. My second wife eventually left me for another man she'd been having an affair with. When we split she admitted to me that she believed that the stress my anger caused her was why she'd become so ill. She even asked me once if I was "comfortable being a murderer." She succumbed to her illness a couple of years later, before our divorce was finalized. I pray that she's finally found the peace that she so desperately needed.
Again, I jumped into another engagement shortly after. This time with an extremely independent, no nonsense woman that didn't take any of my crap. Ironically, we never got married and I ended up breaking up with her. There's a first time for everything, I guess. However, during the time we were together I started going to counseling because I finally admitted that I had a problem with my anger. My therapist suggested that I might have a problem with depression and suggested that I visit a psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with clinical depression and prescribed an anti-depressant. Suddenly, I was getting a handle on the part of my personality that had always seemed to be beyond my ability to control. Then, just before I split up with my ex, I was diagnosed with manic-depression and put on a whole new regimen of meds that seemed to make a huge difference. Not long after I won my battle with two health insurance companies and was approved for the gastric bypass surgery I'd been recommended for. I moved out on my own, for the first time in my life, really. I was promoted at work to a specialized team of "experts" and received numerous awards for my accomplishments. I felt like I was on top of the world. Shortly after, it was all taken away.
First, I was laid off from my job. No one's fault, really. I had missed three previous layoffs because of the poor economy and was foolish to think I wouldn't be affected because of my popularity in my department and my loyalty to the company. Au contrere, the sword of Damocles fell and I was there to catch it. Next, I had my gastric bypass surgery. I thought I was ready for it. I was wrong. Suddenly the central support system I'd come to take for granted, the one thing I'd always turned to for comfort, the friend I had never realized I depended on the most was taken away from me.
Broken, in many ways, horribly lonely and out of money I moved back to southern CA and in with my twin brother and his family. What I didn't count on was the fact that they had so much that I wanted that living with them turned out to be the looking glass I wasn't prepared to examine myself through. Sure, I was losing weight at an alarming rate and I had a little false confidence but I began to feel an unreasonable anger at being so unbelievably inadequate. I felt like an utter failure.
Jump forward to modern day. I have so much to be grateful for. Truly... but my anger remains. Why is it that every time I see a "pretty person" drive by me in a Lexus wearing expensive clothes and talking on their StarTac cell phones do I secretly wish them horrible misfortune? What does that make me? Bitter? Um, well, yeah. Cynical? Oh, probably. Jaded? Disillusioned? Of course. What I realize that it also makes me is horribly wrong. Look, I'm not so proud that I don't understand that my twisted, illogical opinions are unreasonable. I view the world through colored lenses and find that I actually don't look for the best in everyone like I thought. I see someone I feel has been blessed with far more than I've ever had and I feel illogically, unreasonably and foolishly enraged. Who am I angry at? What good does it do me? There's no answer to that. I'm human. I do things for stupid reasons, just like the next person, and, many times, I have no reasons at all. No excuses.
Here's one great big "I'm sorry" to you all. You know who you are and if you don't it's probably for the best. I'm working on my attitude, my karma and my ability to be a better, more tolerant human being. I'm also sorry that it's taking so damned long.
More later. Right now it's time for a nap and a slice of humble pie. Not necessarily in that order.
