An Update.

I'm writing this just to spill some junk that been pilling up behind the ears over the last 6 months or so.

So, some time back I kicked a small addiction I had after weighing it over in my head for a very long time. I felt like I never really made the decision to quit, but the time came that it was out of my hands long enough that I stopped caring about it. At that point in time I was set up with a decent job as a prep cook in a restaurant that a family friend got me into. I had been promoted from dishwasher just about a month before. I was coming fairly close if I hadn't already passed my one year mark with the company and felt I was rather valued there. Sometimes things were uneasy considering I didn't always make the best choices and there's no kitchen without its own level of stress from day to day.

I was very confident of myself in that position, not so much the prep cook job but dishwashing... I was certain I was the best they had at the time I was let go. Let go for reasons my manager didn't make very clear. It must have been more than one and something he didn't really feel he should state or share. Maybe he assumed I already knew why so he didn't need to explain, and if that was so then he would be right. I did know why I was let go, and it was for more than one reason. The raise I asked for, and received. The time at which I got it and how I asked at a time when I was their last trained dishwasher when everyone else had moved to other positions, quit, or were fired. At that time I knew what I was worth and I made the move to make sure I was paid for it. I was let go for taking to many days off that I wasn't due for, asking for more money when management was in a pinch and taking too many matters into my own hands. My head was getting to big for my position. I got way too comfortable.

The thing is I'm like that no matter where I go. I want to be myself wherever I am and if I like a place and feel respected I want to grow without restraint but in most jobs you have a place and you will remain in that place with that level of respect until you take another step which is given to you by someone else. I don't want to live in an environment like that. I want my growth to be endless and under my own control. But that leads to another problem in itself, motivation and skill.

Fast forward about 4 months I would guess. I don't keep track of time very well at all. I feel like I would break down if I really knew how much time passes between these mistakes of mine and how long it takes me to make any real progress so I choose to live in a suspended animation where I have no concept of time.

I'm working at a fast food chain making almost nothing, again loosing a level of confidence in myself. Along this road almost a year ago I had the idea that I wanted to make a career in fitness after living with a family who friends of my own family. A man there pointed out the direction for me to loose weight and become more attractive. And it honestly worked out very well. I changed more about myself than I would have hoped for in that year I lived with them which came to a very dark ending at my own fault entirely. (Seeing a pattern here?)

I started out at eighteen years old, weighting around 240lbs. After about 6 months living there I dropped down to around 190 and my lowest was around 185. I was looking good and feeling amazing, feeling strong and full of confidence that I could do just about anything that I set out to do. I just had to make that choice. At that time I was stuck because I had little to no money almost all the time. I hardly paid my rent which I should have been fully capable of doing. I held little jobs here and there but they really sucked. Getting up and ready at 4:30 in the morning to work at a hardees was really dragging me down. I was still fit and maintaining it but my money flew out the window with my little addiction.

Things were getting tense between me and the home owners. I wasn't paying my dues or doing much of anything else to held them out. I caused more problems then I was helping to fix. Eventually I really screwed up as another habit of mine got me into a lot of trouble. I went from being in control of my life and being able to do anything to being in a state where my life was completely in someones else hands. I was at the mercy of the very family I wanted nothing to do with for an entire year.

When I left my fathers to live with this other family it was my chance to finally get away from all the drama. Life wasn't bad at all just very heavy with all the tensing and fighting between one another. I didn't know then that's every family but I didn't want to be around it. My mother had recently passed away and everyone from both sides of the family were always accusing each other of being worse than the other. I never heard the end of who did what to who and who lied, ect. It was worse than when the elections come around and all you here is attack commercials on the other candidate. And that's exactly what it was. My family was fighting for me to believe one side or the other, but why? Why did it matter to my mom's side so much that I believed my father did all these terrible things? My did my father care so much to convince me my mothers side did basically the same?

I still don't know but the fact was I wanted out of the middle of it all. I was tired of this world that has held up by my mother crashing down onto my head. I wanted to get out from under the weight and that's what I did. Not really by choice, I was being told to move out by my father. But I don't take any offence to that, I was eighteen. But I ended up right back in the middle of it a year later when I was in serious trouble with the law for the first time in my life.

It was different now because there was this level of diplomacy from both sides of the family now. While I was in this very weak down state where I felt like I was worth nothing, just another delinquent who couldn't handle life there was this sort of cease fire on both sides. My father wasn't nearly as harsh as in the past and helped me out of my situation. My grandparents from my mothers side offered me a place to live. My grandparents are very religious and would never let up on trying to make me part of it. I understand why, their teachings tell them if they don't I'm damned forever but they don't see reality the way I do.

Out of all this my biggest mistake was just leaving my new home so suddenly after I made a mistake. Part of me blamed them for the state I put myself into, I demonized them for what I had become and used my grandparents as a refuge from myself. But I didn't leave that part of myself at the door when I left. It's with me always. I burned a bridge to escape myself that was completely futile.

Now I live with my grandparents, lacking nearly all the confidence I had, the motivation was never really that great to begin with. I've always lacked the willpower despite being full of desire. I loved Paul Chek's break down of the word Love. How L stood for the desire, the O stood for absolute and the VE was willpower. I feel a lot of truth from this example and it showed me that I am out of balance with my desire and my willpower. My desire leads me in a million directions all the time but my willpower is so lacking I never move from one point to the next. I'm drifting through this river without much control, wishing I could change my course, knowing its fully possible but lacking the real power from inside to do so. I've gained nearly all the weight back, my body is a wreck of imbalances and pain that I can't explain. I'm still set on a career in fitness starting with a personal training certification through NASM. Ideally expanding from the income to dietitian and other holistic health practices funded by expanding my own knowledge. As I said before my desire is great but my willpower is very lacking. In the beginning I wanted to study for chiropractic but realized it was out of reach, so I aimed for lower on the ladder and decided that through a this ladder I could fund myself to climb higher and gain more insight and knowledge with more and more certifications in more things. But I have not even achieved the first goal, I am far from it and growing farther from it each day it seems.

I'm searching, as I have been for what seems like years, to find control over myself to do the things I want to do. To put myself in the places I desire to be. To become the person I desire to become. I still have no found it, I have tried many times but I fall off the wagon again and again. This spirit is weak and without drive.