Post 1243, Day 209 of 2014
- 1,305 days since I started this blog -
- 1,305 days since I started this blog -
Needless to say, it turned up in the weekend's cleaning. It is expired now (it wasn't the last time I needed it, for my Security check when I started at the VA in December, 2010).
It dates from when I applied for a renewal in August, 2001. It's irrelevant to this comment, but I got Alex a passport, too. The plan was to go to England with the Drama Club that December. With normal processing, we received our passports in the beginning of November. The trip, however, was canceled due to post-9/11 panic.
Here's the thing, though. When I saw my passport photo, I had a wave of unpleasant memories roll over me. I could barely recognize the face in the photo.
I was very unhappy in my fifties. I was overweight (looking at that picture, I think I must have been about fifty pounds heavier than I am right now - maybe more). When you're that out of shape, you don't weigh yourself. I didn't even own a scale until I decided to do something about my weight, about three years later. I don't see any joy in my eyes.
The truth of the matter is, there wasn't a lot going right at this time of my life. My music was iffy, not always satisfying to me, I had lost my voice, was playing music I didn't love, with people I didn't like.
I was about to start my first attempt at a new career as a Math teacher. This would nearly kill me within a year, and remains my greatest personal career failure.
Alex was, at this point, antagonistic towards me. He didn't like me, hated being dependent on me, was probably resentful after the death of his mother. At fifteen years of age, he wanted to be just about anywhere I wasn't. He was embarrassed by me, unsympathetic towards me, and I was always around him - it was just the two of us, and there was no escape for him. I understood it then, I understand it now.
I ignored it as best I could. I continued doing what I had always done, which was to support him in all ways I could, while trying to let him figure things out for himself.
The best thing I had going on then was the service I was providing for the Drama department of Alex's high school, on his behalf.
When I look at the picture, I see someone hurting, someone down, but determined to put his best face forward, even when that face can't seem to disguise the inner pain. Someone whose weak smile offers a glimmer of hope.
It would take more than a decade from the issuance of this passport for things to begin to mend, and they got worse before they got better. The next eight or so years after this picture was taken wouldn't see a lot of joy, and would see even what I thought at the time was my best shot at becoming whole end in crushing defeat.
By the end of my fifties, I would be just (barely) starting my recovery from being broke, homeless, jobless and even more depressed than at any time in the previous ten years. I would have survived a reversal that made the problems I had at the age of fifty-one seem small. But by my sixtieth birthday, the worst was past; that terrible decade of my life would pave the way for the best years of my adult life, beginning about half-way through my sixtieth year.
Funny how that works. Here's the passport picture that started this rumination:
Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!
Food and Diet Section
 |
| 2014 Daily Weight |
Previous Weight: 211.0 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain: + 0.6 lbs
Diet Comment
Last night's off-plan finish (what happens when I don't eat dinner until after a gig, and there aren't any good, quick choices when I'm really hungry). Plus, inadequate hydration.Diet Comment
Food Log
Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.
 |
| Roasted turkey breast and bacon with shaved parmesan cheese on baby kale, baby spinach and chard with balsamic vinaigrette. |
Dinner
 |
| Open omelet: organic eggs, cappicola, peppers, onions, parmesan cheese. |
Liquid Intake
Coffee: 28+ oz. Water: 128+ oz.
Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!
It seems that we have to hit bottom, before we can start to rise . Again and again, each "time" the low is a little higher. Do we think it will end? do we think it had a beginning? It doesn't matter what it is that we believe or do not believe. There is Only what is, and is becoming.
ReplyDelete- Light - Love - Compassion -