The Power of Words

 8/17/2024

The Power of Words  

Friday the 16^th was just another Friday.  It started off like so many days lately I got up later than I expected after I started my workday at 6 a.m. checking email seeing if anyone needed anything in EMEA.  There were no emails.  I sent one to myself just to make sure that my email was working.  It has been glitchy ever since my quarterly password change and since I resigned up for my personal Office 365, the personal and work emails had been confused on which accounts to login where, but we were over that hump.  The test email arrived.  No one needed me and I was content with that, so I pulled the sheets over my head and rolled away from the fan and drifted back to sleep.  That sleep is never really the best sleep, the mind has already started to wake, and it is running around and getting ready to go.  Dreams often fade in and out in this time and if it weren’t for these herkie jerky dreams I would wonder if I had gone back to sleep at all.

Finally, around 8:30 or so, I rolled out of bed and let the beast out of her cage.  Taking her cone off as she bounced out.  She stopped cold when Dad decided to lay down in front of her crate and let her attack him.  I was showered with the puppy kisses.  Then as she so often does, she slipped around me and headed over to her pillow, hoping to get some alone time to work on her paws.  I get up and follow her, and if she does in fact for the paws, she gets coned again so I can get ready for the day.  Whether the K9 tongue is clean or dirty doesn’t matter as much as the more she licks the paws the less likely the paws will heel.  I have been tracking these two spots for a couple of months. They think they aren’t just hot spots but pressure sores from where she lifts off the faux wood and tile in the house.  If they don’t hill soon, then we will take some more extreme measures and try booties or socks.  Socking her is something that I find extremely funny and terrifying.  

Before I realize it is after 9 a.m. and I have to been at the barbershop by 10:30 and there is much to do before I can leave.  Shower, let the dog out, give the dog her medication, go get a diet dr pepper, etc… etc…. So, I shift into gear.  I cone Kona and I hope into the shower and shave.  

I have been seeing the same barber since I got to Bloomington.  I found Megan by mistake.  I was looking for a recommended barbershop called Faded. I found her at Faded Alley.  It was a clutch find.  She does an excellent job of trimming the beard and fading the hair.  She is a super nice lady.  Younger than me by maybe 10 – 15 years if I had to guess.  A pretty lady, not that matters and a former athlete.  She is tall.  I always notice that she is tall. I think she is taller than me.  

I think I told you last time I have been having body image issues.  The none stop battle with the waste line, and I mean that literally.  I think since going through a massive live change and moving across the country I have put back on 20 pounds, maybe 30.  Hard to say what I left California at because I didn’t really track it religiously or honestly.  I know I am at the heaviest I have been in a couple of years, but honestly, I am exactly where I always said I wanted to be back too, and if I got here, I would be happy.  The issue is here is between sizes and based on the day the cloths either feel great or feel awful.  That is just the way of things.  

I don’t believe in diets. They don’t work.  I believe in learning to eat for your body and learning to find the size and place you are supposed to be. It is a process.  There are things I am learning and working through.  Once I learn those things and work through them and come up with good and healthy coping mechanisms, I think the body will adjust again I will land exactly what I need to be.  

I still get down on myself.  I still think like the perfectionist, or the judge and I am quick to criticize myself for this adjustment period.  It honestly doesn’t help.  It is ok to no be perfect, it is ok to be human and to have human moments.  

Yesterday morning I was having one of those very human moments.  Where my pants felt a little snugger than I would like them to be.  I had to adjust them a few times as I drove to get my Diet Dr. Pepper.  I went home and did some work, let the beast out again and got ready to head to the barbershop.  Kona got up with me and she always thinks she should be going everywhere with me.  I mean she does go with me 90% of the time. So, I get her confusion. I gave her a few scritches and headed on my way.

My pants felt better on this trip.  However, the age-old battle waged in my head should I try another diet, or should I stay the course.  Then thoughts and feelings flood in about eating for my workouts and if I could just do that then I could get through the adjustment a lot quicker and get exactly where I needed to be.  

I listened to my book in the car as I drove across the Bloomington to the new location of Megan’s shop.  The book is for book club, and I am fighting my way to get through it.  I hate the characters.  They are millennial yuppies tied up in a sci-fi novel and an alien invasion.  While I think the concept is cool.  It also makes me feel sorry for the world and the people we have brought up in the information age.  Also, I might just annoyed with the book club which is filled with millennial yuppies who are ultra-liberal and spent then entire last book club talking about these same people (we are on book 2 of 2)… wait, wait… I am going on a tangent.  Stop this… Basically, wasn’t feeling great about me, Billy b when I got to the barbershop.

I went in and I asked Megan the same thing I did every time I walked into her shop.  “May I use the restroom?”  I go in the morning.  I take a water pill and drink a 44 oz Diet Dr. Pepper every morning.  It rare I go anywhere in the morning and don’t have to pee.  

After shaking the dew off my lily, I headed into Megan’s new space.  It was cool.  It was a good space.  Very well lit.  I complemented her on it.  She had drama with her last space.  This space screamed drama free.  It was open and warm.  I took my seat in the barber chair after putting my glasses, phone, and wallet on the counter.  She folded my collar in and draped the smock over me.  Then she grabbed the little paper thing that barbers put around your neck and well, did that.  As she snapped me into the smock, I could see her looking at me in the mirror.  

“What do you have going on?”  She started “Your face looks super thing!”  

I beamed.  I didn’t want to beam, but I beamed just the same.  I saw the smile grow across my face as I took those words in.  It was without a doubt exactly what I needed hear right then and right there are that exact moment in time.  

“Oh my god!  That is exactly what I needed to hear today!” Is what I responded.  I sat there in thought thinking about what my therapist had asked me two nights before.  What do you think people see when they see you?  My response was a fat guy.  Then I said no that isn’t it.  I was on the facetime the other day and a good friend of my said I looked like a hipster because of my beard, and my glasses.  So, maybe it is my beard.  The next words out of my mouth were something to the extent of “I have been having somebody issues lately, and you really made my day.”  I went on to say that sometimes I think people just see a fat guy when they see me, and she was like no, not at all.  

It is unreal to me sometimes the world put you exactly where you need to be, at that moment.  I knew that I was exactly where I needed to be.  A new course was plotted for me for the rest of that day. Nothing was going to bring me down.  Sometimes, I hate the fact, that such small things can mean so much.  However, I think that is how happiness and contentment work.  A series of small, one-off things that put an over positive spin on things.  

I ended up having a very human day yesterday and that was perfectly OK!