On new years 2010, I told myself that this year would be different. I had returned from the army 4 years earlier but I still wasn't home. I had moved 10 or so times in my life and even though I own lots of things, all of them fit into boxes. All my possessions can be packed into 1 trailer or 3 truckloads and unpacked into a bedroom size space within 24 hours. At all times.
I had struggled with a weight problem for most of my life, (even
through the army). my weight never really hurt my dance card, but I always felt
fat. I had a girlfriend for most of my life but I knew, "I was what
someone had settled for" (at least physically) and
that subconscious message affected the way I thought about women ever
since. My father had joked that I was the only man in Arizona that
refused to take his shirt off. The same held true in Iraq.
In Iraq my dad told me about the bar he'd bought. A swank jazz
club full of cougars and the Arizona elite. At the time (2004) soldiers were
treated like rock-stars. Guys would make sure to flash their military id
so the whole bar could buy those drinks all night long. And they were happy to
do it. We were fucking war heroes and those were good times. After Iraq I
had one more year in Germany.
Germany was like living in Saving Private Ryan except
there's no war, everyone under 30 speaks English and the nightclubs
are open till 5. I loved it there; I had already reinvented myself once to make
new friends. Great friends. But after 12 months in Iraq, some had died,
some went home, some were transferred, some had been made into real heroes,
others... demoted in disgrace. Shifting tides told me to go home. So I called
home and told my dad I’d help run his bar, which by this time was a total mess.
My parents also decided it was time to tell me that they'd gotten divorced...
And by the way, "you may have a step-brother."
I spent the subsequent 3 years desperately trying to save my
father’s restaurant as it sank slowly into a dismal economy which had already
taken my war money and my college fund. Every 3 months... things'll be better
in 3 months... 3 months later, we would sit around and talk about how we
would've been better off closed (but we can't due to contractual obligations).
The restaurant was a money pit and took millions of dollars before my father
called it quits. A happy accident of the recession was that someone defaulted
on a payment to my parents for a property they had sold. They took back the
property and continued to run it in order to make ends meet.
My mother and sister had convinced me to return to school and my new
best friend had convinced me I was a writer. Off I went, back to community
college. School was less difficult than I remembered and my newfound self discipline
made it easier to get by.
For the first time in my life, a doctor can't tell me I’m obese,
even though he may not agree with the way I got the weight off. I’m single for
the first time in three years, and more importantly, I can flirt with girls and
get them to flirt back. My confidence never needed a boost, but the new-found
attention makes me feel unstoppable.
