This weekend I have been enjoying the company of my enormous family and their (ahem) exuberant children. I had the pleasure of seeing both my parents, every one of my siblings, every one of their spouses, and every one of their children. Let's do the math: Two parents + five siblings + five spouses + five, three, one, and three children = twenty four lunatics converging on one spot. Throw grandma and me into the mix, and that makes twenty six (goofy rhyme unintentional.)
It's insane, and insanely fun. This has truly been a fantastic weekend. Moreover, I had the opportunity to tell several family members about my plans. A couple laughed. One made fun of the iPad: "It's just a big iPod Touch...blah blah nyah nyah waaaah." Yeah, I turned my brain off after the first part. Still everybody was extremely supportive. In fact, my mother chimed in with a generous offer to "underwrite" $100 of the cost of the iPad if I can make my goal by my birthday. Thanks, mom!
What's important about the weekend is accountability...although I guess I should call it moral support. The more people who know, the more people who are expecting me to succeed...and the more people who I'll have to look in the eye and offer an explanation if I fail. Oh the shame! The shaaaaaame! I shall be forced to wear a scarlet letter...a very wide scarlet letter... But I digress. So that's why I've told my family. And that's why this blog is public.
One of my brothers piped up skeptically, "Is this like the time you were gonna run a half marathon and you were all excited for, like, two seconds then you bailed?" He makes a valid point. And quite frankly, I'd love to be in the kind of shape where I can run a half marathon. And who knows, maybe if I can get there by my birthday, I'll be in a place to actually train for and run the half marathon next spring. But the end result isn't the reason for this challenge. Dropping 50 pounds, picking up an iPad, writing a silly blog...none of it is really as important as the paradigm shift I'm trying to make. In a very real way, this is a matter of life and death. Granted, not life and death-in-the-very-near-future, but life and a much-accelerated end, accompanied by a much lower quality of life than I could be enjoying. The mindset that includes eating right and exercising as part of a full and happy life--that's the reason I'm doing this. The smaller clothes, fewer aches, increased energy, better sleep, and yes, the iPad...those are all icing on the cake. Low-fat icing on the sensible portion of cake that I split with one of the kids rather than devour in one bite. Yeah, that.
So Happy Independence Day. In every amazing sense of the word.
Your brother is a schmuck and he can never play with your iPad.
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