I moved into my apartment in October 2023. I was sad, depressed, angry, and grieving. I weighed 358 pounds, and was bearded, as I looked for a long time. By December 2023 I weighed 361 pounds.
I left my old apartment because of memories. I’d lived there for 14 years, and needed a symbolic representation of change. A way to let go of my friends who died, the neighborhood, all of it. I moved to Flatbush because it reminded me of Crown Heights when I first moved there. Except, things were inverted. Instead of a basement apartment that flooded, I lived on a top floor filled with sunlight. Instead of my office being down the stairs, it was up. Instead of dark, it was light.
I started a project to heal. To write again. And my health. I wanted to walk and move. By May 2024 I’d lost 30 pounds. But I was so angry. I’d chosen to work at a company that reminded me of the emotional chaos of childhood. But I behaved in new ways – and many of those choices weren’t good. I thought I was being different, but I was rehashing the angry behaviors that led me in my twenties to anger management – with neither me nor my therapist at the time fully aware that I had PTSD.
But I knew in 2023. I’d known for six years. I got laid off a few weeks after my birthday, July 2024, after writing a last letter to Diana to say all the things I wish I would’ve said. I wrote others to my Mom and Dad. I wrote a long resignation letter, pages, about my job. And then I read it, and for the first time, I realized I was blaming people for being themselves, and not being the people I needed them to be. Because I’d chosen a place like I had, so many times, trying to solve a problem from my childhood that’s unsolvable.
I deleted the letter, wrote a second one, deleted that, then just wrote something simple and boiler plate. And then I got a gift, of being laid off.
I’d screwed up, though. I thought my team was protected, and they weren’t. They all landed on their feet. But that’s because of them, not me.
And I decided that day to come to an end of things, with therapy, with so much, to finish the change project I started. Four months later, I had a strange day in November, filled with synchronicity, where I had a metaphysical change. A deep one. Individuation, courtesy of a hallucination my mind made to help me understand myself. Which started me on a path to learning something new.
How to live as my whole self. What that’s like. The physical transformation continued. But it’s symbolic of the overall change. Now I weigh 200 pounds. I shaved off my beard, and I shave my head. My skin looks younger. I physically look like a different person. Even before then people noticed something different. I feel it, too.
I don’t know what the next year will bring. I’m scared. But I know that the scared feeling is because I don’t really know what’s next. Because this is all new, and I’m being myself in a way I never have before, so my amygdala is warning me, “hey, yo, this is new, new is dangerous, different is dangerous,” and I can smile about it. I can make mistakes and simply learn from them. I notice when I do things right. I notice so much more than I ever have.
In a week, it’ll be the anniversary of that special day. A new day to mark, and one of the first that marks a day not of tragedy, but strange joy.
And today, this is me wondering what I’ll feel about this a year from now. Did I learn how to live as me?
Let’s see.