I never meant to be a fat man. But I ignored me. Yes, I paid attention to myself by putting unhealthy food into my body for years. For years, I bullshitted myself into believing that I could change on my own terms. My own terms were just a mask to cover the reality that I was angry at my body. I was angry at my past. I was angry at all the voices in grade school, junior high, and high school who made me feel like the outsider I really was. I kept hearing voices of disgust and teasing as I was in the locker room or shower. These were the voices that held my attention for almost 25 years. Today, they are dead. The people that own those voices are very much alive, but their voices are muted and pushed off my shoulders into the past where they should be. These are the voices who were mean with their words and their presence. Forgiveness you ask? How do you forgive voices? Voices have hurt and compressed my anger to the point that I was eating myself into their expectations and musings. These were the people who made me feel worthless and excluded. It's not easy to forgive the voices much less the people who own them.
I was becoming something more than that though. I was becoming a dead man. I was eating myself into an early grave. My doctor recently said, “If you continue to eat the way you do, and not exercise or do anything about it, you will die in ten years.” I was eating to make me feel good when deep inside I was nothing but miserable. I was hurt by my past and my present wasn’t any better. Yes, we all feel some sense of alienation when growing up, but I had and continue to have a very sensitive heart for people. All I wanted was to be included by people. And I experienced this at times. There were some good moments of feeling included. Yet even within the profession of being a pastor, parishioners who claim to be friends, are not really, because they do not include, offer words of care, and more or less exclude by their silence. They have preference and it hurts. I thought as adults, we would stop such behavior. I was wrong. This is why I am sensitive to those who find themselves on the periphery of existence. I want to include those who are seen as disposable and expendable. When humanity is responsible for slicing and dicing people into those who fit and those who do not, it makes me sad. I do not see people through eyes of preference or false claims.
I am saddened by how society treats people of size. I am one of them. Yes, I chose to be here. But I no longer am going to be held down by such a category. I am worth more than words of category or words held deaf to the past. I am worth more than eating myself into feelings of hurt, betrayal, and frustration of those left behind who seek to make sense of my death. I am worth living a long life. I am worth living a life on my terms. I am worth living a life without the voices of the past cornering me into a place of self-hate and self-disgust. I am worth giving myself respect and dignity when I have denied myself those very things. I am ashamed by how a lack of love, control, and worth equals excessive weight. I am tired of living without concern or care.
I am going to love myself enough to treat my body as a beautiful creation. I am going to love myself so that I can love others even more. I am going to love myself because I respect myself. Food no longer has control over me. I have gripped food around its greasy neck and squeezed the hell out of it. No longer will I be held captive to the choices I have made and the fast food nightmares my body has endured. No longer will I eat without thought. I will eat to see tomorrow, next year, ten years, fifty years. I want to survive and live. For years, my body was screaming for attention, and now it has it. I am watching it, and watching what I put into it. I have no choice anymore. I want to live and I am going to do it, because life is a gift that I choose each day. I am doing it. I am living for the first time. I am reborn and it feels damn good.
I was becoming something more than that though. I was becoming a dead man. I was eating myself into an early grave. My doctor recently said, “If you continue to eat the way you do, and not exercise or do anything about it, you will die in ten years.” I was eating to make me feel good when deep inside I was nothing but miserable. I was hurt by my past and my present wasn’t any better. Yes, we all feel some sense of alienation when growing up, but I had and continue to have a very sensitive heart for people. All I wanted was to be included by people. And I experienced this at times. There were some good moments of feeling included. Yet even within the profession of being a pastor, parishioners who claim to be friends, are not really, because they do not include, offer words of care, and more or less exclude by their silence. They have preference and it hurts. I thought as adults, we would stop such behavior. I was wrong. This is why I am sensitive to those who find themselves on the periphery of existence. I want to include those who are seen as disposable and expendable. When humanity is responsible for slicing and dicing people into those who fit and those who do not, it makes me sad. I do not see people through eyes of preference or false claims.
I am saddened by how society treats people of size. I am one of them. Yes, I chose to be here. But I no longer am going to be held down by such a category. I am worth more than words of category or words held deaf to the past. I am worth more than eating myself into feelings of hurt, betrayal, and frustration of those left behind who seek to make sense of my death. I am worth living a long life. I am worth living a life on my terms. I am worth living a life without the voices of the past cornering me into a place of self-hate and self-disgust. I am worth giving myself respect and dignity when I have denied myself those very things. I am ashamed by how a lack of love, control, and worth equals excessive weight. I am tired of living without concern or care.
I am going to love myself enough to treat my body as a beautiful creation. I am going to love myself so that I can love others even more. I am going to love myself because I respect myself. Food no longer has control over me. I have gripped food around its greasy neck and squeezed the hell out of it. No longer will I be held captive to the choices I have made and the fast food nightmares my body has endured. No longer will I eat without thought. I will eat to see tomorrow, next year, ten years, fifty years. I want to survive and live. For years, my body was screaming for attention, and now it has it. I am watching it, and watching what I put into it. I have no choice anymore. I want to live and I am going to do it, because life is a gift that I choose each day. I am doing it. I am living for the first time. I am reborn and it feels damn good.
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