where i'm at

There are definitely days where I feel like an alcoholic who has woken up facedown in a gutter somewhere after three years of sobriety. It's a question of: how the fuck did I get here? I know exactly how I've gotten to where I am at, but the main question I still have for myself is how the hell did I let this happen?

I told myself I was at rock bottom months ago... before I was down to 5% of my wardrobe and filled to the brim with self loathing. I am making a conscious effort right now to remember how bad I currently feel every day so that this never happens again. And I feel pretty bad on some days.

That sounds really negative, and to be honest, it is because it has to be. But the goal of this process is to realize that this is in fact a process (sorry Kanye West on my brain) that requires effort and that I have a long sobering year of hard work ahead of me. It will be behind me at some point; it always is. The problem is that I've been here before on more than one occasion. And the last time was supposed to be the last time. Just like the time before that, and the time before that.

I'm not allowed to get away with much before the consequences become very clearly evident. That's just the hand I was dealt. Just like I was blessed with a great memory and a captivating wit and charm ('sup ladies)... you win some, you lose some. It's just that every once and awhile, I forget that I'm on a short leash and I find myself in a mess of shit.

Now I stand before you up to my armpits in said mess of shit, and I need to get out.

Although to be fair, it's been a long year of sloth and laziness, and it's getting difficult to shake the cobwebs off. There are some thoughts out there in the world of personal finance about how paralysis by analysis can stop people from investing, because they try to plan out the "perfect" investment strategy. As a result of this they just wind up never doing anything. Well, I've kinda been guilty of the same thing. "Oh, I've gotta run. Get up every morning and run! Oh, I've gotta lift... lift 5 times a week. Gotta try to get in shape so I can do crossfit/mma training, whatever." What it leads to is a whole lot of I'll get started on that "this coming Monday's" and a whole bunch of inaction.

I've decided that I'm just gonna do whatever feels good at the time, and right now I'm going to work on lifting and getting my foundation back. I'm going the whole nine yards on this, I think. There will be (already is) pictures, which hopefully you can all see some day. Because the only way another human being who is not myself is ever going to see them is if there is a killer "after". I've set up some goals and things I'd like to achieve over the next year. They aren't marked with firm deadlines, but mostly general timeframes. Most importantly, they are achievable and realistic. I plan on this spanning into the spring of 2011 without interruption. It's still summer '10, as you know, so this is a marathon.

I kinda talked about a lot of the same things last year, but the main issue with last year is that even at the worst point things weren't really that bad. That's not the case this year; not the case right now. I can only remember two times in my life when things were worse. The last time was right around the time I decided to quit graduate school, and the situation was prett similar to where it is now. Bad, not the end of the world. I got my head in the right place and slowly but surely fixed the problem. The worst I've ever been (by far) was late 2005/early 2006, living with my ex-girlfriend Amy. Things got really out of hand, and she tried to help me in the right direction but my head was really in another place at that point, and it was pretty useless. And too late for me at that time, as it took me two years after that to wake up. It was too late for us to, for a variety of reasons, but I've have to imagine that was chief among them, at least on her end.

There is no us to worry about now, but I've finally realized that this has to be all about me. A lot of times in the past I felt like I had to do such and such to change the way other people perceive me or the way people felt about me, but I'm realizing now that's secondary.

I don't feel as negative as this sounds, but if you really know me then you know that I am my own harshest critic and I'm a very realistic person. I know what my faults are and I know what I need to work on. No one is ever going to surprise me with a complaint about me that I haven't already considered myself. This is a pep talk to myself that other people can read.

Tomorrow is a brand new day, and even though tomorrow is Monday it's not going to be another "this coming Monday." It's time to set things straight.