The Captain: Rebirth Issue 4.5

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth......I lost weight. Had surgery. Got depressed. Moped around. Got a baby. Moved. Had surgery again. Lost my job.

Issue #4.5 - The Final Insult

The end of 2015 was approaching which means the annual gift of holiday depression was about to make its unwelcome arrival. There were a number of items that led up to my depression this year. Back around Thanksgiving or so I got an email from Spartan Race announcing their 2016 race dates. I had considered doing a Spartan Race several times but never went through with it. On my podcast Too Nerdy For TV I even mentioned in an episode near the end of 2014 that I wanted to do a Spartan Trifecta in 2015. In a rather odd moment I was trolled by a form email. The subject line of the email from Spartan read "Last year you said this year." I was called out. I was called out by a pseudo-spammy form email. I talked to some friends at work who run Spartans all the time and decided that I am going to actually give it a shot in 2016 to do the trifecta. Shortly after that I got an unexpected punch to the gut.

My wife and I are working on getting financially secure enough to buy a house. We have enlisted the help of a financial adviser. This is a one-stop shop kind of place that does insurance, investing, retirement planning, and everything in between. We have been adulting super hard lately. We met with this guy about getting grown up life insurance and I was under the impression there were no medical questions or anything like that. WRONG! We have to give all this information about our past medical status and give fluid samples. We each gave our height and weight and that is when the punch came. The guy says, as though he is asking if we can put down a larger down payment on the car so our monthly payments go down, "Could you get down below 300 in the next 2-4 weeks?" Really? Sure, let me just drop 20 lbs just like that. No big deal. It's not like I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I can go up and down whenever I want I just choose to be overweight because it keeps me warm during the winter. I was embarrassed, I was hurt, and I was angry. I'd like to say I channeled that anger into something positive but honestly all it did was make me hate myself. Everything I ate, every workout I did not do, pretty much everything I did just made me really down on myself and did nothing for my already growing depression.

As if there were not enough amazing moments in 2015 this was also the year of clothing failures. For only the 2nd time in my life the rear seam of my pants lost their structural integrity. I was on my way to work and got out to drop off the mail and when I got back in I heard a rip. I inspected and found my pants to have ripped clean waist to....undercrotch. I ran back home and changed and spent the rest of the day humiliated. No one saw it but the shame remained. In my pant's defense they were old pants but still.... Fast forward about a month maybe and it happened AGAIN. This time AT work and in the pants I had bought to replace the pair that had ripped. This time it was MAJOR. Luckily for me I work about 3 blocks from a HUGE Wal-Mart. I took my button-down shirt off, tied it around my waist and headed off to Wal-Mart to buy an emergency pair of pants. I purchased said pants in the largest size I have ever bought, went to the bathroom, changed pants, tossed the old ones, returned to my car and proceeded to cry for the next 10 minutes. I was nearing rock bottom. Both of these happened before the aforementioned "how fast can you drop 20 lbs" incident so that was made SO much better. Fast forward another couple of weeks and pair number 3 splits. Luckily this was a small rip, no one noticed, and I got home just fine. Now these last 2 pairs came from the same outlet mall so perhaps they were defective and I got what I paid for. However, that still does not make the whole situation less humiliating and devastating.

Speaking of pants, 2015 decided to kick me one last time before the end of the year. My wife insisted on taking me clothes shopping for my birthday (which is 2 weeks after Christmas but we made use of after-Christmas sales). I despise clothes shopping. I find no joy in it and this was no different. We went to Kohl's and there was not a pair of pants in the entire store in my size. That was soul crushing. To know that you are officially fatter than the clothes at the store really takes the wind out of you. My wife happily searched the store for shirts she thought I would look good in and I tried every one of them on, hating myself more and more with every look in the mirror. The clothes are very nice and I love my wife for wanting me to look my best. She loves picking out clothes for me. She also understands how touchy the subject is and she even mentioned how bad she felt that I could not find large enough pants.

That brings us to the end of 2015. I know I need to fix a lot of things is my life and this blog is an attempt at accountability and working through some of those things. My 1st post of the new year will be all the things I want to accomplish in 2016. Rather than New Year's Resolutions I am considering them goals. I will keep the goal list updated for everyone to keep up with the progress. Until then may the Power protect you and may the Force be with you.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/