The End of the Beginning Part III: No, Really - This is Finally the End

“It is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning.” – Sherman the Robot (Millennium, 1989)

The above quote from a kinda whack 80’s Sci-Fi movie actually served as one of my points of inspiration when I first set out on my written catharsis. I feel it speaks volumes about how I feel at this time of my life. My life isn’t over. It’s not even close to being over; however, the first half or so of it is. What’s done is done. Time to look ahead and figure out what happens next – and so much of that is all up to me. So now all I need to do is start. How about I start with what I can control?

Once again, I have decided to take another journey down the weight loss path. I have done this multiple times. I have always had a little success only to get bored or frustrated and ultimately give up. I have been at it for five weeks and have lost five freaking pounds. WTF? A pound a week? That’s great for a person that only needs to lose ten or fifteen pounds. It’s another story for me. If I keep going at this pace, I’ll die of old age before I lose all the weight I should. 

After careful reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I may have to actually work out to get this weight loss thing going. I hate working out, and by that I mean go to the gym and work out working out. I have done it before, and I have gotten very little out of it. It’s…its…boring! It’s not that I’m lazy. I’m not! I am probably one of the most active fatties I know. I just need to actually be doing something to get a work out. To assist me in this area, I have purchased a video game system with games where I have to seriously move around in order to play them. There is also the bonus of jerking around the room like I am having a seizure in the privacy of my own home. My extreme lack of rhythm demands that I not dance in public. It’s just too damn humiliating for me and distracting for everyone else.

Then there is the question of what I want to do professionally for the rest of my life. In this day and age, I am not embarrassed to say that it has been some time since I have worked. It is, however, time to get back on the working bandwagon again. I refuse to go back to the circle of Hell known as the insurance industry. I just can’t do it again. I sacrificed 12 years of my life to that wretched industry and I have sworn I would never go back. The problem is that I don’t really know how to do anything else.

I have realized that college and graduate school didn’t prepare me for jack shit in the real world. The only thing I learned whilst getting all that education is that I can write a twenty to fifty page paper about anything. That’s when it dawned on me. I do know how to write, and I actually like doing it. I have written short stories, poems, research papers and even a novel. I have started to do some quasi-professional writing on the side for extra scratch, but TRUST ME – I’m still basically unemployed. Writing for a living can be hard, and I may not make a lot of money doing it, but it’s easier to get paid just a little to do what you love than to get paid a lot to do something you hate. I know that for a fact.

So here’s to the end of the beginning of my life, and I couldn't be more pleased.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING PT II: I Only Have Myself to Blame…Mostly

Mmmm….where was I? Think soon-to-be-addled brain, THINK! Ah, yes... “What the Hell…” or something like that.

To be fair, with regard to all the things I have felt have gone wrong with my life were really no one else’s fault. As with everyone’s lives, there were certain aspects that were just beyond my control; however, I will concede that a great many things I have both externally and internally whined about up to my 30’s are all on me.

There are so many things that I could have done differently – school, friends, jobs, my weight. All of those things were the things I have always whined about, and all of those things were well within my own control. I could have actually applied myself in high school. I could have been a little less of a bitch and had more friends. I could have had a different job. No one forced me to work at a restaurant for 10 years and then in the insurance industry for the next 10. Finally, I could have just gone on a fucking diet. Like I said, everything that happened up until I entered my 30’s was all on me…mostly.

So much happened in the last ten years, though – so much that I couldn’t stop or change. I have lived through a decade of filled with so much suckage that I am actually looking forward to it fading off into the ether of the past. 

First of all, I spent most of my 30’s working at a job I despised. I was a liability claims adjuster in the insurance industry. Yes, I know. The actual job was within my control; however, getting laid off was not something I could have stopped. So, going through my savings and ending up fucking broker than a joker was never part of any kind of master plan. It isn’t for anyone.

The worst part of the last decade, however has got to be the number of deaths I have had to deal with. You just can’t do jack shit about people dying because it is something everyone is going to do. First, my best friend of over 20 years passed away, and it was all downhill from there. I was then faced with the deaths of two beloved uncles, my sister, another close friend and then my father. This all happened in the second half of those damned 10 years. 

I have been spiraling a bit since then, and it will take a while to get over it, but it’s not the proverbial end of the world. It’s just life, and shit just happens. There have been many times I have been content with life…sometimes even happy, believe it or not. There have also been many times that I have never been more unhappy and disappointed with myself. I’ll be damned if I’m going to dwell on it though. What’s done is done. I can’t turn the clock around and change anything. The past is just that – the past. I think it’s time for me to get over it.