I have not found it yet

The setbacks are starting to become more prominent than the advances right now. I wish I knew how to put that into more flowery language, but that is all I have. I have a giant wall of anger and frustration at the end of a long road of setbacks. I was finally feeling better. I finally got back into the water and I was starting to feel that positive momentum shift. Then what happened, I tweaked my knee something fierce. I was on crutches for two days, I have been gimping along in agonizing pain for the three days. I have a new knee brace and the added stress to my left leg to take the weight off the right has caused a different kind of pain. Sunday night I thought it and Monday afternoon I said it: Maybe I am not mentally tough enough for this. I am so down on myself and so down on my body.

I have had to sit for two days during tech week. It is killing me to sit and watch my cast and not be in the trenches with them. It has caused me to really feel angry at myself for letting this happen in the first place. If only I had not gotten obese in the first place, I might not be dealing with this pain right now. Maybe I would be on stage dancing and moving with a cast of people to whom I feel very close. I do not get close to that many casts because, well, because it ends and we move on to the next one. With the short rehearsal process though, I feel like we all got thrown into something and all we have each other and I am on the sidelines watching. Even as I type it, I just get so annoyed with myself.

I know none of this healthy. I know my attitude sucks right now, but what am I supposed to do? I am trying so hard to get my health back (or get my health for the first time) and these constant setbacks are grating. I am slowly trying to build my knee back up. I have exercises to strengthen my legs and I am doing them twice a day. At some point, they have to work, right? At some point I will start to see progress again, right? Please, someone answer in the affirmative here? I am not looking for platitudes of encouragement, I am looking for someone to smack the crap out of me and get me back focused on the positive. I know I am the only one who can do that, but it is so hard. I am tired of hard, just for a little while I would like something easy. Trying to find a job a difficult enough. Why can't my body just allow me this one thing to be easy. Of course I know it is not easy and I know if I get myself back on track and get back to the work, it will pay off and the harder it is, the more satisfying it will be.

So I am left with trying to make sense out of this. I am not one of those everything happens for a reason kind of guys. I find that a real easy way to not take responsibility for actions. it is not how I operate, however, this moment, this constant stream of setbacks has to matter. There must be a lesson for me to learn from this, not because of some cosmic force, or fate but because I need to know there is meaning here. One of the things I have tried to do over the last few years is make sure every experience has meaning. I usually attach meaning to something to make sure it matters. This series of physical setbacks has to lead me somewhere. I just do not know where yet. I am hesitant to push myself too hard right now. I am tentative. I hate living a tentative life. I lived a tentative life for a long time, I think that is partly why I ended up this way in the first place. I want to experience things. I want to apply meaning to these experiences.

This morning I was at a CPR training and our instructor, to break the ice, asked everyone their favorite food and one guy responded "I am adventurous with food, so I am going to say I have not tasted my favorite food yet." I think I can apply this to so many other things in life. What if I have not had my favorite vacation yet? What if I had not tasted my favorite meal, or drank my favorite drank, or reached my favorite happiness? What if I set myself up to constantly be striving to find my favorite things? Would that change my life in some significant way? Would it cause me to experience more things with fresh eyes, fresh perspective? This is a thought, an idea, a theory that I will be molding in the near future. I will almost assuredly come back to this idea on this blog.

One last thing, people are kind of awesome. This might be a bit of a shock to hear from me, but they are. People, in general, have been so great to me. I have spent so many years thinking that people tolerate me. I have spent much of my life thinking that people could not care one way or another about me, but I am finding that to not be true. I know I need to find the right people, but I have a lot of the right people in my life and surrounding my life. it is something I visited on this blog when I got those two amazing gifts, but I want anyone who is reading this to know that every pat on the back, every text, Facebook message and every comment pushes me along. To really start to believe that I have a community of people who care about my welfare is no longer overwhelming, it is just seriously comforting. I can only hope that all of these people feel that I am on their side with whatever they are going through. I have had people open up to me as a result of this blog because people can see part of their struggles in my words and it is not something I take lightly. I am humbled and honored that people want to include me in their life journey and their struggles. So I will just say it again, people are kind of awesome and we should tell people they are awesome when their awesomeness shines through. So I want to publicly tell my Joseph cast that they are awesome. Thy have been helpful, understanding and encouraging these last few days as I have been sidelined. Also, Steve Isaacson, my director is the most supportive person in terms of my weight loss. he always has been. Every time I start to lose weight, he is the first person to notice and always reminds me how much better I look.

One last awesome person moment. Martina, who could be an awesome person moment on a daily basis for me, has been driving me around and doing everything she can to make my stubborn ass sit down and stay down. I love her so much for all of it.

I am going to try and end every blog from now on with an awesome person moment. if you have any, please let me know, I would love to include them.