The first six months of my second life

I will tell you I am fine
I got some news, friend, feels like I'm dying
turtle on its back in the desert sea
and you look like a cool drink
just slightly out of reach
draw myself into the shell
waiting on a sign from god
or a nod from hell
and it's so nice
sitting very still
without those old shoes
I could never fill
now we're turning on the lights
it's the first day of my second life
take my name off of the lease
you can even keep the name it never suited me

May 30, 2012.  The first day of my second life.

• Weight: 244lbs
• Severe case of asthma from smoking
• Making good money but living from paycheck to paycheck
• Disconnected from my live-in girlfriend, only paying attention to her when I wanted something.  She was in the process of moving out.
• Idea of fun: going to bars and getting wasted, taking a cab home.
• A lot of embarrassing behavior

I was not a well person.  I was in fact quite sick.

December 5, 2012

• Weight: 184lbs
• No cigarettes in 7 months
• No alcohol in 6 months
• Watch the sunrise on the beach every day
• Ride my bicycle 26 miles a day, rain or shine, 6 days a week
• Eat well every day
• get a good nights rest, every day
• Learned how to actually connect and communicate with people on their terms instead of trying to cherry pick what I want from them.
• Learned that emotions will not harm me.  It's ok to feel them, important in fact, even and especially when they hurt.  Hiding from them, suppressing them, only causes them to fester and make my thinking distorted over time.
• Spent a lot of time decluttering my life.  process nearly completed. Ready to move into a small humble space where I can live lightly and save my money.
• Ex girlfriend may in fact give me a second chance, something which almost never happens in this society of disposable friends and lovers.  She's a heck of woman and I'm humbled.

Six months ago, I was an unhealthy man who lived in a very small world as running from my problems decreased my field of view until it was not much more than packs of cigarettes and Vodka and Cranberries.  I have picked myself up off the mat, faced my demons, rid my life of wasteful excesses and baggage, and I continue onward, living my second life.

Dinner with old friends

Dinner with the old friends was, a bit weird. 

This was a couple I had known for a very long time.  People who really have done all the right things by the standards of our culture and live a comfortable life.  I've always looked up to them.  So here we were breaking bread together for the first time in several years.  I thought it would be warm and comfortable like a well worn leather reading chair.

Nope.

Felt disjointed and strange. My not drinking was immediately picked upon which is notable in and of itself right?  I mean what normal person would care about the beverage I was ordering from the waitress?  It was awkward  and the couple, they had wildly different reactions.  I got the sense this was a long simmering disagreement and the reaction was really part of an ongoing dialog between the two of them.  They did not order another round of martinis like I'm sure they would have normally.  So that's the footing things got off on.


They live down the street from my ex-wife and gave me some bad news. Sad to hear some of that, but she never was one to be reasonable nor learn from her mistakes.  An ex is an ex for a reason they say, and this is true, but that doesn't preclude wishing the best for them.


The conversation mostly settled on how various people I'm no longer in contact are doing, what was the story with the split from the girlfriend, things like that.  so it was mostly about how other people were doing.


It ended up being a short dinner.

I walked away not really having a good feeling, and having negative thoughts about my sense of self.  I didn't like that.

This is the central issue as far as I'm concerned:  Redefining oneself.  How much of the past does one retain?

One of the things I run into repeatedly is people having a definition of who and what I am, reflecting that at me, sometimes *even trying to convince me* and it's feels weird.  I'm *not* the person they think I am.  Maybe never was.  Experiencing people's perception of me is not unlike walking around in a room full of funhouse mirrors.  Everything is distorted.  This is what someone said to me recently:  

"giving up old friends can be liberating, because as you are redefining yourself the old clay is sometimes contaminated by the view that others have of you, had of you, preconceive of you. I guess what I mean is that getting rid of the old clay can sometimes include some people with it."

It feels like a lot of the time people operate from a space of projecting memories and experiences on to everything, almost as if the present reality doesn't even exist.

So I'm not sure where it's going.  Not going to abandon everything and walk the earth like Caine from Kung Fu, at least it doesn't feel like I'm heading in that direction.  But I'm becoming weary and leery of people who want to define to me who and what I am, either passively or actively.  And that means some spring cleaning may be in order.

I had in mind something a little more radical...

I want more life. 

So what the fuck does that mean exactly?

Does it mean less time spent working?  Does it mean more money?  Does it mean better health?  Does it mean a longer lifespan?  How do you quantify it?

Let me give a concrete example of what it isn't.  Is there a thing from the past, like someone cheating on you, or a bad accident, that when you start to think about it, your heart rate goes up, you feel anxious, and your mind begins to race?  Have you ever noticed that that thing, no matter how many times you turn it over in your mind, you never seem to get anywhere with it?  It's like a repeating loop of being pissed off about something and thinking about it never brings you any closer to resolution.

I bet there's lots and lots of those isn't there?  My head is full of them.

What is really living life then?  I think it's when your attention becomes fixated on your surroundings, your body, everything that actually exists, rather than memories of the past or projections of the future.  The more you find yourself doing that, the more life you claim for yourself.

Living like that does not come easy to me.  I have to pedal a bike for hours on end, or have perfect waves, or some other extraordinary external circumstance that breaks me out of the prison of all these reactive patterns that I constantly seem to be living out.  I think identifying negative patterns replacing them with positive ones is a pretty good start.  If you're going to live out a bunch of unconscious patterns, they might as well be healthy ones right?

When time stands still

Also known as the perfect moment.  No thoughts of the past, or the future, or of anything really.  100% in the the present, the now.

Saturday featured one of the better surf sessions I've had in Florida.


The morning sesh out back was nice enough.  After that I was futzing around and thinking about a bike ride.  Wind was holding offshore into the afternoon though..hmmm.  My tide watch said it was high tide...Normally north Jetty on a Saturday with a clean groundswell would be jam packed with surfers but we've had 5 days of swell and I had an idea the high tide might get some more to go home, what with it getting later in the day and all.  So I threw my board in the back of the truck and took the ferry over to the the island.  Timing was money, tide had backed out enough to drive on to the beach and there weren't many people at all for a Saturday.

Surf was substantially better than out back.  Lineup wasn't too crowded, was catching as many waves as I wanted.  Ran into one of my neighbors which was pretty cool.

Thunderstorm rolled through.  Nasty, violent, but not survival conditions.  Wind was so strong the rain was stinging and there was a lot of surface chop.  Some of us stayed in the lineup and kept surfing.

Before too long, the front blew over and the sun poked through the clouds.  Lineup was weeded of anyone who did not have a strong motivation to stay.

Wind completely died.  Water was like sheet glass, and the tide was just right.  The waves were a foot overhead on sets and perfect.  Not a drop out of place perfect, with a silvery mirror-like surface.  Catching wave after wave, taking off deep, driving through the first section, then turn after turn until kicking out in knee deep water.  On my way paddling out I would see other people catching waves and surfing them with unconscious flow and style, completely melding themselves with the wave - no layer of thinking between.  And so it was, like a dream.  A perfect moment in time.

After a time the tide wasn't quite optimal and the waves started to get a bit wobbly, and then the wind started to blow again, and the moment was gone.  I caught one in, put my board in the back of the pickup truck, threw a towel down on the front seat, turned the key, and drove back towards the park entrance.

Would have been a good day to have a nice camera.

That morning I pulled out a box of clothes that used to be too small for me.  In the box there was the bintang T-shirt I bought from a street vendor at Uluwatu.  I put it on and it fit.  Comfortably.  I wore it in the lineup at North Jetty of course

.

Tomorrow never comes

And I don't wanna be an old man anymore
It's been a year or two since I was out on the floor
Shaking booty, making sweet love all the night
It's time I got back to the good life
It's time I got back, it's time I got back
And I don't even know how I got off the track
I wanna go back, yeah!  - Weezer: the good life

It is time I got back.  But unlike Rivers Cuomo I know exactly how I got off the track.

It's called 'tomorrow never comes'.  It works like this:  Just one more vodka and cranberry.  Just one more Cigarette.  Just one more night on the town.  And it's sorta like groundhog day, every day is the same and they all just bleed together.  Tomorrow, I'll change tomorrow.

So sometime back in early April in 2012 I'm talking to my doctor.  The only reason I went to see him is he refused to keep refilling my asthma prescription without an office visit.  So we're going over everything and his two chief concerns were that:

1. I was going through asthma medication at an unacceptably high rate and maybe it was time to look at some other things such as supplementary oxygen.  wait, what!?! 
2. Then it was on to my rapid weight gain, which in combination with my deteriorating vitals were an indication that I may be on the cusp of type 2 diabetes. Wait, once you get that shit there's no un-having it, that's like permanent, right?!?  YES.

What the fuck is this!?!  not too long ago I was surfing in indo bitch.  This can't be happening.

Well, you're in your 40s, and your body doesn't bounce back like it used to.

I was in a state of shock.  I asked him about prescription quit smoking medications and he put me on chantix which makes you crazy as all get out. you may die from turning into a psychotic basket case, but you won't want to smoke.  Sounded like a fair trade-off to me.  Yes there were strong side effects no question, but I rather enjoyed them.  Is that kind of sick or what?

But let's get back to tomorrow never comes.  In my mind up until recently I had been kicking ass and taking names and this getting fat and being a smoker and drinking heavily all that was just a short term thing I was going to take care of any day now.

My passport says otherwise:

Yea, that says 14th of may, 2006.  six years ago. SIX YEARS AGO.

Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.

-s

This bike riding thing: it ain't all sunsets and rainbows.

This stormy weather weather in the afternoon thing is beginning to irk me.

20 minutes into my daily bike ride the sky darkened.  at 30 minutes it was drizzling.  at 45 minutes the wind was cranking, the rain was coming down in sheets, and the lightning was firing everywhere.

About 17 miles in a guy passes me up, doing 19mph into a strong crosswind.  His bike looked like a total beater, old steel frame spray painted silver?  But the rider was lean and his form was good, and I saw the shiny flash of nice components and a powertap in his rear wheel.  Must have been his bad weather bike.  I like his style.

The shop that works on my road bike sells the Colgano's,the Cervelo's , the Felt's and all that.  Lots of stuff with 5k+ price tags and I would love to own one.  But the places I like to hang out have funky old stuff that's really cool.  Old steel frame racing bikes, new steel frame road bikes, track bikes which are the cool thing with the kids, that kind of stuff.  I just bought a new bike to keep in my office so I can hop on and ride around when I need to destress for a bit - go exploring and stuff.  It's a Torker kb2.

How cool is that!?!  Clean, spartan look.  Two speed hub w/coaster brake.  Plenty sturdy for hopping curbs and taking shortcuts.  That bike is perfect for urban exploration.  Lunch just got a lot more fun.

Catching up to the beginning

Hello,

I'm not sure what this blog will be; I'll let that sort itself out.  I think the main thing is to as Nike would say, Just do it.

But this isn't really the beginning.  No that was a couple of months ago.

The real beginning was on the 30th of May, 2012.

I had quit smoking for almost exactly a month, thinking that was going to fix my life.  At the time I weighed 244 lbs, smoked about 30 Marlboro lights a day, and drank around 70 units of alcohol a week.  How much is 70 units?  A 1.75 liter bottle of vodka I reckon.

Well, getting rid of the smokes helped.  But after a month of that I still felt like ass.  So, sitting there on the couch with a nasty hangover after a multi-day memorial day bender, I decided that was it.

And that brings us to today, about 77 days later (yeah I count days).  I'm down to 213lbs.  I get a good night's rest, I eat well, and I exercise.  I feel a world better.  I feel like a different person practically if you want to know the truth.

The thing is, I'm sort of rediscovering life.  A lot of things that many people take for granted are a novelty to me.  It makes sense to write about it not just for the novelty factor but because I think it will help me to find my own voice rather than just repeating things I've seen or heard and thinking it's me, which I reckon is quite common.

Lost in daylight, finding my way.