Urgent Matters… Yours or Mine?

The title might be somewhat unclear. My son-in-law’s father was recently diagnosed with a stage four cancer. He is in his mid-eighties and lives a fairly healthy lifestyle. As a result of my daughter realizing a perspective that she doesn’t want to lose either of us, she has had this urgent message to Jen and I about diet and exercise or basically, health improvement in general for us. I understand this feeling, but I also understand the natural kickback from those receiving the message. It’s natural to resist someone’s urgent need for someone they love. But what I have also learned is that you can’t change people at this late stage of life if they are comfortable with who they are and with life in their own skin. Obviously, none of us want to lose a parent and believe me, I have no plans on leaving this earth anytime soon. This is largely why I just had a surgery that I could have pushed off for another few years with some alterations in what I was doing regularly.

Its not like I don’t see myself in the mirror everyday and for those few minutes standing there looking at myself, I make some serious mental notes on change. As I walk away, that thought vanishes onto the next thing I’m about to do. Thinking back to Euell Gibbons, the face for the granola movement in the 1970’s who still died after a life altering change in diet, one must wonder if he thought it was worth it. Many of us found some humor in him eating bark to be healthy and dying anyway. As far as I know, there has been no one that has beaten or cheated death. It is one of those sure things we all will experience. Should we totally live an unhappy life of trying to do everything to extend our lives with abstinence being the mainstay of our life? Or should we merely make some heathier choices and work those things like exercise into our life in a way that allows us to enjoy our life with an expectation from our loved ones to respect that we live our life on our terms and understand in doing so, I should also not have regrets in the end for my choices?

Do I want to lose some weight? Sure, I do, but do I want to do it through some method that I would never sustain forever? Of course not, I don’t want a life like that. I’m not going to eat a diet that is the California fade for this year. There is a lot of vanity in the world, but I also believe that most people who are less than Barbie or Ken in looks, largely accept their look, and are generally only reminded of their weight or looks by others body shaming in the name of love or by those stares and whispers when in public. If you want people to resist a good intention, understand when you desire someone to live their life on your terms there will always be a resistance. I have lived with others looking at me and making whispered comments or out and out comments to your face. What I’ve discovered over time is that there must be a real lack of confidence in someone that has to try to shame someone else for their own self affirmation that somehow, they are better than others. I certainly don’t include my daughter in this, her motives are purely not wanting to lose her parents, but yet somehow it still raises the same internal response in myself. I’ve had a lifetime thickening my skin to this and at sixty-three years old, I’m very good at putting people in the box they deserve to be placed in.

That being said, I had already made up my mind to improve my health. Not necessarily to prolong my life to live until I’m one hundred years old, but more from the idea that I’ve replaced a knee, had two back surgeries, need a shoulder repaired, a bicep tied back, and a neck repaired. What I simply want is to not hurt. I would like to walk without pain, laugh without coughing, bend without holding my breath, cut my own toenails, and not find comfort in slip-ons instead of tying my own shoes. These are simple things to want. Will a keto diet really resolve all of these issues. I have some serious doubts that it would. It would help in simplifying the process temporarily, but in the long run, I just need to cut out fried foods, eat more fruits and vegetables, and reduce sugar. All of which I’m doing and is why I’ve lost seventeen pounds since my surgery. But do I still want a bag of Funyuns now and again? Well, yeah, I just need to understand I need to make up for it and not make it a habit.

I’m conscience of my lab results twice a year. I talk honestly and openly with my doctor, and I adjust based on those things. I want to be happy, pure and simple. There are things that I want to be able to do and I don’t need to be able to run ten miles a day to do them. In fact, my surgeon might have had a heart attack if I told him I was running, so my lack of running is protecting him. I’m working at being happier, this should make everyone feel good about me and they should be happy for me in the process. Why not acknowledge this and just say I love you every chance you get. Sooner or later, I’ll die. When I am gone, I hope you aren’t sitting there thinking that if I’d ate a few more pieces of lettuce that you’d have had more time with me. You will always have me. I’m there in your mind. Be happy for me now and after I’m gone remember me for what fulfilled you, not for what you were unable to change about me. I’m happy and accept myself with all my faults. Is there anyone that doesn’t want that? Go listen to Bobby McFerrin’s song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.  Now, where the hell did I stash that bag of Funyuns? Damn me for thinking it out loud.