In 1983 …
My 9th birthday was the 1st week of July.
My sister’s funeral was a week later.
July 22, 1983. Friday. I started work. This was my parent’s way for them to keep an eye on me, and also to do what they knew, to use work to distract from feeling bad.
For two years, my grandfather Fred somehow messed up my SSN payments and claimed them as his (which led to me getting an IRS audit when I was in high-school years later). But I’d worked since then, at our family’s amusement park. I made change in the shooting gallery, and helped at the junior track.
I learned how to run all the other rides, and by the time I was 11 I knew how to run every ride at the park, how to manage the cash registers, how to make change, even how to do basic mechanical maintenance on the different rides.
July 22, 2024. On the day I decide to quit my job and focus on my health, I get the notice. I’ve been laid off. It’s just a coincidence. A DEEP one. But there it is. And instead of me taking a break after 41 years of non-stop work for six months, I can take a year or more if I want.
I’d become someone both myself but far away. Like, at my family’s business, my Mom and Dad always complained about customers. That was part of the ritual at the Amusement Park, you’d complain about customers, each other, and that was normal. Even though, that wasn’t me. I’d talk about how much fun something was, or how I saw this kid smile and no one wanted to hear it. But if I talked about gossip, or something bad, it was like, “gimme gimme gimme.” And over the years, I’ve gone into places where that’s normal. And then, sometimes, I’d become GOOD at that. Not just complain, but RANT. Not just kvetch, but vomit. I’d been working since 2018 to recover from my CPTSD, and then losing people in 2020, my Mom in 2021, my Dad in 2022, my mental health was just so distant. It was in my body, too. I was morbidly obese in 2020, and by 2023, it was awful. In December 2023, I weighed 361 pounds. You can be healthy at any size, you really can, it’s all about your cholesterol, your heart health, and a bunch of indicators.
I wasn’t healthy. Not mentally. Not physically. So in December 2023, I started to focus on small changes. Eat healthy. No more, “set a weight loss goal, get to it as fast as possible.” It was, “learn to be healthy.” And that mindset went right with the changes in mental health. I’d become a jerk at work.
I needed to learn how to be myself again.
As of this morning, I weigh 220 pounds, still heavy but no longer obese. I’m consulting. I’m volunteering. I’m good.
And I’m lucky.
There’s gifts all around us, if you can see them. And in that gratitude of the gift, if you’re lucky? Like really lucky? You’ll find yourself.
I hope your day is wonderful. I hope you’re able to keep believing in yourself. And I hope that if you want to, that you’ll go ahead and make that bet on yourself.
Because I know, deep inside my bones, that you’re worth it.
And we have that in common.
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Also posted to LinkedIn.
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