The truth of it all

Well readers, I am not going to lie to you, I have been avoiding the blog this week. I told myself when I started this thing was pointless if I was not going to always tell the truth no matter how unflattering it is and this week has been a week of ugly truths for me. There has been so much amazing support and people have become inspired to make their own changes, or continue with their own tough journeys that I did not want to disappoint or let anyone down, so I avoided it. Shame on me, really. We all know there are going to be ups and downs, but I have tried so hard to focus on the positive, that I did not want this week to bring it all down. To be fair, my bad week did not really come with a physical health price. Shockingly, I ate very healthy, I very nearly avoided all soda and my physical activity has sky rocketed. It is in the spiritual and mental health parts where I have suffered the most.

First some good news. Yet another person sent me money to buy shoes. I did one show with this generous young lady and we were not terribly close. I promised her the money would go to continue my health quest. I might use it to see a doctor or just put it towards healthy food, or some other venture. I was floored again. It was a wonderful gift and it again caused me to wonder why people are so willing to put stock in me. Is it specifically me, they are putting stock in, or just some guy trying to get healthy? What is it about me that makes people continue to root for me, when I so often feel like a complete loser? Again, I faced the idea of investing in myself.

My culinary skills are definitely improving and anyone reading this who has good, relatively easy recipes that are healthy, please send them my way. I am not putting all of my eggs in one dietary basket. I am just trying to eat more well rounded meals and my last shopping trip included no microwavable garbage. I have been cooking on a nightly basis and I cooked chicken for the very first time this week. I still prefer red meat, but with the right spices it was good. I did the whole meal without any salt, which makes me feel really great. I have been switching off between swimming and walking and actually turned the end of my last walk into a jog, which just about killed me, but also made me feel good.

So why has this week been so tough? I have been feeling really down emotionally lately. It is hard to really explain, but I have felt like I needed an emotional purging session. I have this great girlfriend, am finally heading to a real career, have a wonderful family and a pretty supportive group of friends, but I rarely feel deserving of it and every once in a while I just freak out because there are so many people I could end up disappointing. There is this fear that one day everyone is going to wake up and realize I am not worth the trouble. I have had literal nightmares about this kind of thing. It is stupid. I know that. It comes from years of insane loneliness in my younger days, but it exists. There are days when I think I will never figure it out and if I can find some sort of light shining through in all of this, it is that this week I handled it dramatically different than I ever have in the past.

In the past, I used my weight as a reason. When people did not like me, I assumed it was because of my weight, so I kept eating, that way I could always have an excuse. I never took weight loss seriously because there is this fear that I would lose the weight and people still would not like me, or girls would still not take me seriously and then it was not about how ugly I was as a fat kid, but who I was as a person. I have always wondered what would happen if I lost weight. Would I still be me? So, I just kept eating and hiding in this shell of lonely fatness. it is a ridiculous excuse, but it worked. It kept me from allowing myself to get too hurt by anyone because I had this ready made excuse. When a girl laughed at me when I asked her out my freshman year in college because I could not possibly be serious, I played it off and I could get away with it because no one takes the fat kids seriously anyway.

This week, this week I kept on my path. I ate steamed vegetables, glorious fruits and stopped myself from over eating. This week I pushed through the pain in my shoulder and did more laps than my goal in the pool. I ran! Me, Kyle Hadley, I ran. However, most importantly, I talked to someone. I laid down with Martina and just talked about everything I was feeling. I have given all of myself to a very tiny group of people in my entire life because usually when I start to get too much into the more depressing stuff I feel people back away. This week I just took a giant flying leap of honesty and was greeted with a giant hug and some of the most kind words I have ever received in my life. It is impossible for me not to tear up as I write this. It was not a sigh of relief, it was a full blown hurricane of relief to lay everything out there and not have someone tell me I am being a downer, or being ridiculous, and not back away, but just lay there, hug me and take everything. It was a life defining moment for me. it was a moment I can look back on and remember when I start to feel myself completely shut down again.

That dear readers, is what I have been avoiding for a week. This is the single most honest thing I have ever written to be seen by anyone but me. I am not saying my demons have been completely exercised, but during a week when I felt an extreme weight of depression, I managed to stay on my path. I battled my demons again and while I probably was not a lot of fun to be around this week, I pulled through. This is the last week of high school for my seniors and we have been talking about the big changes that are about to hit them and I told them all that life is going to such sometimes, but it is how we react to those moments that define us and it is the people who still want to be around us in those moments who are the ones we should keep around. It is about damn time I start following my own advice.

kay time to go watch 4 of my students in a variety/talent show.