A Dark Mirror

I’ve been working out for maybe 2 months now, 2-3 times a week, hitting it hard. It’s having an effect on me. My weight is VERY SLOWLY falling to post holiday levels. My body is much more muscular and toned. I am thrilled. I can do things I couldn’t before, or do them much more easily. I have a level of confidence I hadn’t enjoyed in nearly twenty years. It made me think back to the last time I was this proud of my body… and what I found surprised me… and saddened me.

I was just about twenty years old, in college, just met my wife… It was 1990 or there’s about. I was no longer a child, a young man about to build his adult life. I was too heavy. At school one of the required courses was physical education. I took it; I had to and found that I loved it. I hit the gym hard, I sweated, I ached and I was starting to get results. I was feeling good about myself, my body, my future, my world.

One day after the gym I was walking back into the school portion of my college. I was on the street, walking, in Jamaica Queens. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a waddle when I walk. One of my legs is longer than the other, product of a birth defect. Two men started to openly ridicule me in the street as I walked. I got really upset; I turned to face them and took off my backpack. One of them punched me in the face, splitting my lip and knocking me into semi –consciousness. They ridiculed me as they walked away, leaving me bloody and humiliated. I went to campus security, but nothing ever happened, the men were never caught, no one took it seriously. I was just one more victim of random violence.

Looking back I cannot understate what a profoundly negative event this was in my life. I can honestly say that this was a contributing factor to my obesity. I never went back to the gym at school; I abandoned the idea of getting into shape. It made me more hateful, cynical and judgmental. I didn’t rejoin a gym until 2003, and then again in 2005, but neither time took. I quickly canceled the memberships. My twenties are long gone, my thirties will soon follow.

I’ll be forty before the end of the year, and I am probably in the best shape of my life. I intend to keep at it; I need to, for myself. There are times you look back and think, “How did I get to that place? What the hell happened to me?” Sometimes the answers come to you, those horrible turning points in your life that break your heart, destroy your spirit and leave you forever changed (and not in a positive way, I should add). I gained such a hatred of my fellow man that day, a hatred I still carry with me, which I fight against daily and one that often overcomes my defenses. It is a hatred which I kept at bay for many years with food.

It’s funny what a dark mirror self reflection can be. Sometimes it shows you dreams and sometimes it shows you nightmares. But everything it ever shows you is you.