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Things can be alright, alright? Or Losing Weight

I need to lose weight. Spoiler alert: I already know that. I was at peak physicality at like ten. I could run for days. I never did and hated to run so I hardly did but I knew that I could. Nothing ever seemed that important enough to run to. Or from for that matter. The big scary dog up the street that looked like a wolf from hell? Just stay away from him and you'll be alright. Why hassle yourself with running? He's just going to chase you anyway. Playing soccer and baseball required running and in that arena (not literally mind you, I'm no mega athlete here) it seemed sensible. Whether I played on the "Detroit Tigers " or the Wildcats I saw the value in hustle. You had a goal and that was to win against those kids from the other elementary schools you didn't go to. Why? Because they don't go to your school obviously! So screw then! If they were any good they'd go to Tashua like you did (yes that pretentious sounding word was my elementary school and it's exacerbated when you know the other schools were called Jane Ryan, Middlebrook and Daniels Farm). But I digress. Why do I equate this to my need to lose weight? It's about drive. What happens when you are a kid and Sunday lasts a week, summer a year and Christmas Eve is the best day of the year (besides maybe the last day of school)? First I assume it's the realization that life is not a party. There's pain. There's disappointment. There's Sixteen and Pregnant. It's not all days of wine and roses (watch that movie if you haven't if not for anything else than to see Jack Lemon drunk). Around the end of middle school you realize that it's not all going to be smooth all the time. You probably get dumped the first time. Or rejected. You realize that school can be a cruel place with cruel people who seem to get great pleasure in your misery. I never had teachers who made me feel like shit about myself. I wasn't bullied aside from once in kindergarten when someone made fun of my ears. But I did see people who got made fun of, people brought to tears, people hurt for seemingly no reason. I generally kept to myself. Sort of a silent protest. And I wasn't bothered. But maybe I should have said something else. Maybe if I had been a little
More outgoing the teenage malaise would have passed me by a bit. I don't know. I don't want to make it seem like my teens were hell because they honestly weren't. I had friendships that were important to me. I had support. I was a solid middle of the road kid. Not the funniest and not he dorkiest. Just me. But somewhere between there and here that becomes not enough. We start feeling like we need to be more than we are. In college before we finish high school. Working  before we're done learning. And it's important that we learn that we are never done learning. Ever. Everyday is a clean slate I truly believe that. It doesn't erase what you've done but it does let you start fresh as the person who knows what to and not to do. A lot of the lessons I learned about life are from when I was a kid. Be nice, wait your turn that kind of thing. But the best lesson I need to learn from them is where that drive came from where that ability to let it go went and where to find it. Get back my ability to run for days even if it's from a big scary wolf dog. 




And maybe then I can lose some goddam weight

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