Today is a critical day for me in my life. You see, when my Dad was a mere five months from his 46th birthday he received the worst news possible: lung cancer.
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Well, I’m that age today.
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It’s funny, for the longest time I’ve always told Carol I just wanted to “make it to 46” because that’s when Dad died. But the day I turned 45 I had a sudden realization that that wasn’t the goal. The goal was actually 5 months before 46. I never told Carol that.
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Well Carol, I guess I’ve made it. No diagnosis of impending doom, yet.
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Now Dad wasn’t exactly surprised. Smoking since he was young (I think he told me age 12 once) had caught up to him. Treating your body like that is just going to take its toll. Dammit Dad, why did you do that?
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And while I don’t smoke, only occasionally drink, and have never put an illegal drug in my body, I do know I’m overweight. I honestly do fear it doing me in, yet “getting off my ass and doing something about it” just doesn’t sound like fun. The internal voices tell me to get up, they say don’t go down early like your dad did, but the motivation just isn’t there. What more motivation is there than the thing you fear the most? Life is weird like that, I guess.
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I know many people fight many battles at the same time, I don’t. I’m terribly happy most of the time, optimistic, and generally just glad to be above ground another day. I’m rarely depressed or down.
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But the weight? It troubles me.
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This isn’t a post to draw your kind words, “you can do it’s” or even pity. It’s really just me putting down words that have been inside me for 7 months now, waiting for the day they can claim victory.
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I miss you, Dad. I’m not going down like you did. Heck, I’m only halfway there.
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Oh and sorry kids, looks like there will be more Dad jokes and goofy Facebook posts to come.