Monday #9--Seeing clearly

"I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
It's gonna be a bright (bright) bright (bright) sunshinin' day.
It's gonna be a bright (bright) bright (bright) sunshinin' day."

 

            "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash 
 

After my depress-fest post from last week I want to be happier.  I am at least on this journey and being more honest with myself about what I eat, why I eat it and where I really want to be in life.  When I think about the fact that my kids will get to see my struggle someday and know that I was trying to improve myself for the better that motivates me to want to go on.  I will continue this journey for the people who are here and hereafter so that I can motivate someone else to improve their life.  The only way to do that is to do this and lose some weight.  I am still here and I am still going!

I am officially 325.8 pounds.  Not close to where I want to be after nine weeks, but I have lost some weight and I just have to get consistent in my eating and moving to lose weight consistently.
 

 

I love my sister.  I preface this post by saying that because the stories herein may come across like I am some gigantic clutz/jerk who does not love his sister, but that is far from the truth.  I was a fat kid and oftentimes I did not know the true magnitude of my girth.  

 

One Sunday morning I remember coming into my sister's room while she was sleeping.  I think my mother was in the room too and we were all getting ready to go somewhere.  I just plopped down on what I thought was the edge of my sister's bed.  Well as soon as I sat down my sister shot up and started screaming like she was possessed.  This scared the crap out of me and I thought she had awakened from some horrible nightmare.  

 

She was in a horrible nightmare, but it involved my fat behind.  When I sat down I plopped right on her ankle and sprained it.  She needed crutches and I felt incredibly guilty.  That, however, is not the worst part of the story.  When freak accidents happen they scare us, but after the healing we go back to our complacent ways.  In other words a few months later I skipped my fat behind into my sister's room and sat on her bed and she shot up and...I wish I had a time machine. 


                         Actual picture of me at 9 years old:

Another time when we were kids we were in the back yard and I was lifting her by her legs up a tree.  In fairness to me I thought there were some bird eggs up there, which was really cool, and since she could not lift me it only made logical sense that I lift her up by her legs on this tree while unsupervised.  She naturally was terrified having never been up that high and pleaded with me to let her down.  I was angry at that point at missing my chance to see some cool bird eggs and said "FINE!" and dropped her.  

 

I literally opened my arms and let my sister, my baby sister, drop to the ground.  Again, that is not the worst part of the story.  She scraped her stomach against the tree.  So while I was supposed to be watching my sister and "playing nice" I instead was hoisting her up trees and exposing her to potential gangrene conditions in the outback wilderness otherwise known as our backyard.

Now before you start believing that I am a horrible monster and this was a one sided bullyfest I have two stories that show there was some level of turn about. 

Once my sister was watching a show in the living room and she left the room for some reason.  Obviously this meant I could change the channel to whatever I wanted to watch that was not the obvious crap she had chosen before.  When she returned to the room she definitely wasn't pleased and requested the remote control back.  I refused and may have potentially "run" a little bit with the remote until I was cornered by a wall.  At that point I thought to myself, "Really, what is she going to do?"  

                                My actual face at that moment:

 

Well what she did was take both of her hands, grabbed the pointer finger of my left hand and turned (some would say wrenched it) allll the way around.  I never knew that your finger could actually turn almost 360 degrees.  I learned that fun fact at that moment.  And yes it felt exactly how you think it would.  I remember my knuckle swelling up and my finger hurting for a few days.  I never went to the doctor (did I mention I was from North Carolina) and to this day that finger looks and feels different than the one on my other hand.

The last story didn't happen until we were teenagers.  I think I was 17 or 18 and she was either 16 or 17.  We were at the mall and we went to the food court.  We ordered from Taco Bell (because why not right?) and I remember she ordered nachos.  When we sat down with our food, she must have forgotten something because she started to get up.  She turned to me, looked me in my eye, she may have pointed at me and fog may have arisen around us as she said, "Do not TOUCH my nachos."  She then walked away.

Ok, so obviously even if I was not considering it before I was now forced to take a majjjor portion of her nacho real estate.  On principle of course.

 

As I was eating them three thoughts actually popped into my head:

A) YOU are not my MOMMA!

B) YOU do not tell ME what to do!

C) THESE NACHOS are especially GOOD this season.

So my sister returned to the table.  She sat down and looked at her nachos and then looked at me.  I smirked....

The next thing I remember is looking to my right and my left cheek burning, probably because my sister smacked the SH*T out of me.  The smack, which was really loud, was not the worst part.  The worst part was that sitting about ten feet away from us at another table were two teenage boys who were DYING laughing at what they just saw.  It was like Sinbad, Martin, and Def Comedy Jam were performing live for them at our table.  If my face could have turned red, like my left cheek probably did, it would have. 

                                  Let us name him Tyrone:

The lesson I learned from that, naturally, is that my sister is right handed.  I should have expected the hit and been ready with my left arm to guard myself.  Then I could have laughed at her and cracked a joke about her being an unsuccessful abuser instead of sitting with my cheek bumping as the world laughed at my pain.  See people, you have to pay attention to the lessons in life..it's the little things.

It was great growing up with her.  We had lots of tender moments as well and I always know there is one other person in the world who knows what it was like to grow up in our home.  I hope my sons get to experience the lifelong love that we have (minus the potential assault charge worthy behavior).

 

Join me on this journey next week as I mark #10 into the books.