Gentle Response To “Your Fat Friend, Before & After”

True Family, Friends and Clothes

One moment I’ll never forget on a regular happy 2010 evening. It was getting close to Christmas so ’Tis The Season, right?

Your family, true friends tell you some kind of hurtful truth. Not your clothes.

As jolly as I was, you have to imagine the slight dip in my dopamine levels when a really close friend of mine leaned over and whispered in my ears, “So, do you really think you’re gonna be able to fit into those?”. It was a verbal translation of “Get real buddy, I can see it (your protruding belly fat) and you look gross in those”.

It hurt.

My shirt was specially picked at the store to hide my belly and yet look presentable. It cost me more than my usual comfort T’s and I was getting pounded before any sort of activity or chatter even began.

Check out my picture on the left. It’s tiny but you could detect a hint of man-boobs and belly or waistline fat.

Hiding those was a drop dead failure. As you could see in my tale of the Christmas month gathering.

There isn’t any bullying here nor was there a flashy billboard sign. It was a genuine, yet casual comment. Here’s a shameless Captain-America-Wishes-His-Shield-Was-A-Mirror reflecting back to you if you’re about to judge.

Let’s put aside the fact that you are much fatter or in worst health than the picture or how I described the situation.

Whatever it was, the truth hurts and this was little deeper than I’d expected.

Our degree of pain corresponds to the level of the capacity inside and the response we have is a choice, but the depth of the hurt is proportionate to the level of our relationships.

So, hold on, listen up.

My head spinning with the comments being rolled like a broken tape recorder or a crappy mp3 track downloaded on an online stream community. “fit into that, fit into that, fit into that”. I’d give anything to listen to Pharell Williams soothing words, but it wasn’t out yet… go figure.

Hurt brought me a reminder of how I was a failure and I was destined to remain like that for a long time. I should just accept who I am. My creator loves me just the way I am and my mom always told me growing up. Son, I love you just the way you are.

All parents are great motivators and lovers.

A Weekend, Never Again

Interestingly, that fateful event in my life was a Friday night and I woke up with my head in a splitting headache on bright and sunny Saturday 9:45am.

I put on my comfort T’s, shorts, grabbed my wallet. Ready for brunch. Geez, I’ll go treat myself to a nice weekend meal that could probably cover me until pass lunch. Then, I’ll buy some yummy food and fried chicken wings back for a late lunch, an appetizer before dinner. Didn’t have time for a drink.

Where’s my flip-flops?

That’s when I stopped just before my front door. I saw my “sport shoes”.

I figured I’d slip into those cause they always felt comfortable. I’d remember buying them years ago for brisk walks when in town or just planning for a non-stop day out.

It all came flooding back to me. The pictures I took with my loved ones, friends, it was all from afar. I imagined myself smiling and hoped that no one saw my belly, chesty non-manly bags and my geeky smile trying to look distant.

I really hated all that.

I felt so tired of hiding. So tired of being comfortable with those tactics.

You know that moment when you realized, your friends love you just the way you are they just don’t care what you do with yourself. That’s when it hit me.

“In order to change we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired.” ~Author Unknown

Word.

I felt sick and tired. I totally wanted to do my weekend routine. You’ve been there before, done that countless times, life goes on oh-bla-di-oh-bla-da. I get it, but here’s the real lightning bold in my chest and it shot my blood right up to my dopamine and adrenal levels.

This weekend, I’ll never live like this ever again.

A Digital Self-Image Is Worth A Thousand Words

None of the images matter, we are in a digital age. Photoshop and the myriad of choices you could do to snap yourself to that lovely face, body or butt.

Billboards? Heck, that’s the past, all your facetime, tweet, insta, posts and shoutouts, watch chat or voice, it’s got an avatar. No real privacy is available to the masses at this point.

So, you don’t have to beat yourself up, at this hopeless juncture. Instead rejoice. This is a day of change and new beginning for you and me.

That iconic weekend, I put on my shoes without thinking much.

All my brain and my heart had was, I’ll do a 10 minute light run or jog around my block. Even the kids walked faster than my pathetic panting with my trusty “sport shoes”.

I saw spots in my eyes, all within a “lengthy” 5 minutes into my jog and wanted to give up. So, I sat down overlooking the lake near the jogging track.

Families were in sharing a joyful fun time together in roller blades. A dog happily dragging it’s unwilling lady owner along in a thin bright green leash. Probably looking for a place to mark. I smiled at this.

Some teenagers walked towards a nearby cafe on the track with a basketball on one of their hands. An elderly couple walked hand in hand, and showing each other the various beauties of nature that surrounded that track.

I posted a selfie, with only my shoes as a digital image and sent it to my loved one, saying, look what I did. I’m out of breath. LOL. Touched my phones home button and looked at that brightly lit lake again.

I was on this side of the road, close to my block. I whispered under my breath.

“Next week, I’m going to cross to the other side and try that 10 minute jog again”.

In June of 2011, I became the after and that, was just the beginning.