Cheating on Death

I guess you could say I have been knocking on Death's door since the day I was born. We all have. The minute you fire up those lungs and start breathing on your own, the Ferryman is on your heels with every passing day. If your one of the lucky ones, you won't hear from him until your old and gray. Sure, you may catch a glimpse of him everyone in a while. Like the time when you were 12 and decided to tempt fate by flying your kite, Ben Franklin style, during a lightening storm. Or like the time I did something stupid and stopped caring.
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Earlier this year I had become frustrated with my struggles to get healthy and was just kinda done with trying. Accepting what I had become from years of ingesting every empty calorie that came within 20 feet of my face, seemed like the only way to stop the misery. My previous attempts at shedding my unhappiness, left me tired and broken. The weight always won in the end, and piled itself back on with the help of my extremely dim will power and ever present addiction to all things that are bad for me.

At first my decision to go with the flow seemed like a solid choice. After all, if I couldn't be thin I might as well be happy, and happiness to me was food. So I continued to eat like a pig and reupholster my couch by wearing an imprint of my ass into the cushions. Like I said, it seemed like a solid plan. But the reality of what I was doing to myself didn't hit me until a very uncomfortable run in with the very thing I had been avoiding my entire life.

Death was the furthest thing from my mind, but unbeKnownst to me, he would come a courting soon. I would notice him kinda hanging around here and there. At the buffet restaurant he would hang out and shoot the breeze with the older set, but I could feel him staring at me with every mound of food I shoveled in to my face. I swear there were occasions in the drive thru at Del Taco I could see him, a couple of cars back, in a dark green, 1970 Plymouth Duster. Every single time I participated in a self destructive act, he would become more visible and his presence was unmistakable. It finally hit me. I was being stalked by Death!

It kind of freaked me out to think about it, but my taste buds had firm control of the situation. Pretty soon having him around, watching from a distance, just became a part of my life. Every once in a while our eyes would meet and in that awkward moment I felt a morbid curiosity in his gaze. Kinda like the weird girl in high school. You know she is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but you still wonder what it would be like to go out with her.

I actually thought of embracing Death and just not worrying about it. Much like my decision to give up on my self and true happiness. That is how powerful my addiction and sloth had a hold on my common sense. How selfish is that?! I am sure my wife and children would be pretty upset if I was gone. But when your mind is made up, no amount of pleading from anyone is gonna change it. I mean, if the people you love the most aren't reason enough to try, then you need to seriously check your head. With that being said, the biggest thing I have found, the secret if you will, is you have to want it for yourself. You also have to believe that you're worth it. That was pretty tricky for me in my current "F@#!$k It " mental state. No, this was not going to be an easy change. This game of flirting with Death went on for quite sometime. It was all pretty innocent until I decided to push it too far. That was the day he finally decided to introduce himself.

It was a weekend, my family was off doing their own thing and I had the run of the house. I proceeded to work on my ass groove in the couch and had settled in for a Brady Bunch marathon on TNT. All my snacks piled around me within reach and remote at the ready. I even had a large Gatorade bottle to pee in if I didn't feel like hauling myself to the bathroom. Yup. This was shaping up to be an awesome afternoon, and it was! Until the dog got out.

Right in the middle of the Davy Jones episode, just as Marcia was meeting him for the first time, I heard my dog barking from the front yard. He was supposed to be in the back. I jumped up and tore out of the house after him. That damn dog bolted down the street as if he were shot out of a canon. I took off after him not even thinking about the strain of my 350 pound suite of flesh on my knees and back. With every stride the pain worsened. I finally caught up with him when he decided to stop and pee on everything he could. What a site that must have been.

I grabbed him by the collar and drug him back to the house. I fixed the hole in the fence and then banished him to the back yard. As I sat back down, the stress of what I had just done made my heart feel like it was gonna explode. I sat on the couch trying to focus on the magnificence of Marcia, and her oh so short skirts, but the pounding in my chest soon moved to my head and I began to black out. My vision faded in and out of focus for several minutes and the pain in my chest was indescribable. When I came too, I found Death sitting next to me on the couch. In the blink of an eye our relationship was escalated to DefCon 1. It went beyond flirting this time. This was the equivalent of an ill advised drunk dial after a Tequila Shooter contest.

As he looked at me longingly, the gravity of my care less philosophy hit me in the gut and snapped me back from the edge. To keep this love affair metaphor thing going, I was practically standing at the freaking alter making the biggest mistake of my life. What was I doing for god's sake? I'm only 38 years old! Far to young to be getting mixed up with the likes of him. In that moment I knew that this affair had to end.

Over the next few months, with a whole lot of help from some new friends and a renewed lust for life, I ended my twisted relationship with Death. I explained to him that I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment just yet. There were still so many things I wanted to do, and being dead would seriously hinder my ability to do them. One day I'll be knocking on his door, but not now. He seemed to take it pretty well, but there were some moments where I thought he was gonna go totally "Fatal Attraction" on me.

I still see Death just about everyday. I see him in all the places I frequented during that reckless love affair. But he doesn't even notice me. He has moved on to other, out of shape people that have given up on themselves and their happiness. He thrives on that. Whenever I see him with those poor bastards, I just thank my lucky stars I dodged that bullet.

Things are much better for me now. I use the memories of that day with my stalker, to help me stay focused on my health and making the right choices. Every time I make a positive choice in my life, it's like I am cheating on Death. He may find me one day, but it won't be because I gave up on myself and I certainly won't be fat when he finally does take me. I refuse to go out like that!