January 18th, 2012: My first experience with weight issues: 5th grade football, I’m 10 years old. They impose a weight limit on 5th grade players. You go over the limit, you don’t play. How’s that? Come again? Too big to play football? That really sucked. I remember eating only an apple a day and being so damn nervous for game day. Not nervous for how the game would go, or how well I would do, I was only nervous about being over-weight. I always made it, but I say again, that sucked. Fast forward 26 years and I’m going down the aisle of the airplane with that same sick feeling, only this time hoping I could fit in the seat. I’m the only asshole on an airplane that never worries about it crashing because all I’m worried about is trying to keep my fat ass out of peoples’ faces as I go down the aisle and realizing that everyone already seated is hoping to God I’m not coming to sit next to them. I can barely fit in a coach-class Delta seat. This really sucks. If I don’t do something sooner than later, I’m certain the seat belt will not go around my gut, and God, what happens if I get called out and have to buy 2 seats? I can not afford that financially, mentally, or emotionally. Diets suck, but being obese sucks worse. I have to pick my suck.
January 18, 2020 (retrospective): Ironically, in the days and times of my obesity, fitting in is all I wanted. I wanted nothing more than to be unnoticeable – a square block that fit perfectly into a square hole; that or I wanted a Bilbo Baggins ring that would make me disappear. And yet another irony, I made myself into the loudest mouthpiece, and the most obvious person, in any group situation, if I remained in that situation for any amount of time. The fat guy maybe should keep his mouth shut and then maybe he wouldn’t get so noticed, instead he turns the tables and becomes the buffoon. I was quite skilled at turning myself into a side-show clown to be laughed at, not laughed with. Some fat people turn bitter and wear dirty looks around. Some fat people are loud and funny. Some fat people like me are totally humiliated by their obesity, and fairly bitter about it, but still loud and funny. All fat people don’t want to be fat people. Fat people would rather be skinny and poor than fat and rich. It fucking sucks. I would do whatever it took to Just. Fit. In.
