Thank You Daddy
At first, I did not know what I wanted to say, then I thought about it for 3 days before I realized that I just need to talk.
This afternoon I had a flash thought of how thankful I am that I was raised to work hard.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not sure what exactly my parents had in mind when they raised me. I think a lot of it has to be my controlling personality and my inability to sit still (cough ADHD cough) that I forced myself to find ways to occupy myself.
When I didn't want to nap, I taught myself multiplication in the dark (it was the only game I could reach from my mat). When I was finished with the lesson, I would reach for whatever book I was reading. When I had a silly class that was "unimportant" I would finish my math homework so I could take extra hours at Cinemark. I worked tirelessly because I like to work.
I finally found a group of people that, if I were able to sit down and have a conversation with instead of a one-way podcast, probably would not laugh at my stories of not sitting still. Actually, I know they wouldn't, but they would probably offer me sound advice on how to make monies on my stories.
Eventually, eventually.
If I wrote you a book on my diet, you'd laugh. If I wrote you a book on all the therapy and self-helped this past year alone, you'd laugh.
But I hope that when I write about self-care and self-love, you take me seriously.
The diet and the therapy and listening to like-minded people is a way I found to love myself. And in those moments of clarity, when they say something and I find my eyes widen as I realize just what they mean, it hurts me to think someone else does not feel that every day.
It is always the same. I want to win. I want to accomplish. I want to crush goals and things that stand in my way. Because I have had so much, so many people, so many things, so many time constraints, telling me what I can and cannot do, that I have had to stop giving myself the out.
The out.
Yes, the out.
Honey, I bought you a cell phone so you could go to a sleep over but call me the second you don't want to be there any more.
Honey, they made fun of you on the school bus? I'll drive you to school.
Honey, you don't want to kick the real wooden board, which is the only way you'll be a black belt? It's okay, you can quit.
Yea. Those are all real stories. My childhood. My adversary. My story.
It sounds like an middle-upper white class story, but the message is the same - you can quit and it's okay.
But on the other hand, I have my father literally telling me to accomplish whatever I want, I just gotta work. I watched him work 16 hour days and come home defeated, only to wake up and do it again. I watched him spend every waking moment he was not at work actively working for my mother's needs. I watched him spend my entire childhood behind a screen so that my family could have the benefit of a single-working-parent household.
I watched him work. I saw him struggle. I copied his coping mechanisms.
Which is why it took me a full year not to crave tortilla chips. It took 9 months to stop craving alcohol. And I still haven't mastered sweets or home-baked goods or emotional-eating. I built 24 years of life on "you deserve the feel-goods from food because you did X". It won't be undone today.
I fought cold turkey for 3 months. I used vanity and pushed negativity as far as possible for 6 months.
But it wasn't enough. And it still isn't enough. I had to get another job, stay out of my apartment, stay away from my parents' house, kill myself in schoolwork and literally, literally, literally, do whatever I could do to stop thinking about food or the next time I could eat.
My goals were always my goals, but now they're bigger.
And they're not bigger because I've met the smaller ones. Maybe I have met a few of them, but they're bigger because they make me work that much harder (thank you Andy Frisella).
And, truly honestly, bigger goals make me a better person. I don't want a 6 pack to show off a bikini and get 1,000 explicit pictures from the opposite sex. I want a 6 pack to prove to myself that I can control my body and mind to reach whatever goals I want. I want a 6 pack to show you that if my 217 pound butt can do it, so can you.
All you need is love. The Beatles said it, so it must be true.
Thank you Daddy, for breeding the hustle in me.
This afternoon I had a flash thought of how thankful I am that I was raised to work hard.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not sure what exactly my parents had in mind when they raised me. I think a lot of it has to be my controlling personality and my inability to sit still (cough ADHD cough) that I forced myself to find ways to occupy myself.
When I didn't want to nap, I taught myself multiplication in the dark (it was the only game I could reach from my mat). When I was finished with the lesson, I would reach for whatever book I was reading. When I had a silly class that was "unimportant" I would finish my math homework so I could take extra hours at Cinemark. I worked tirelessly because I like to work.
I finally found a group of people that, if I were able to sit down and have a conversation with instead of a one-way podcast, probably would not laugh at my stories of not sitting still. Actually, I know they wouldn't, but they would probably offer me sound advice on how to make monies on my stories.
Eventually, eventually.
If I wrote you a book on my diet, you'd laugh. If I wrote you a book on all the therapy and self-helped this past year alone, you'd laugh.
But I hope that when I write about self-care and self-love, you take me seriously.
The diet and the therapy and listening to like-minded people is a way I found to love myself. And in those moments of clarity, when they say something and I find my eyes widen as I realize just what they mean, it hurts me to think someone else does not feel that every day.
It is always the same. I want to win. I want to accomplish. I want to crush goals and things that stand in my way. Because I have had so much, so many people, so many things, so many time constraints, telling me what I can and cannot do, that I have had to stop giving myself the out.
The out.
Yes, the out.
Honey, I bought you a cell phone so you could go to a sleep over but call me the second you don't want to be there any more.
Honey, they made fun of you on the school bus? I'll drive you to school.
Honey, you don't want to kick the real wooden board, which is the only way you'll be a black belt? It's okay, you can quit.
Yea. Those are all real stories. My childhood. My adversary. My story.
It sounds like an middle-upper white class story, but the message is the same - you can quit and it's okay.
But on the other hand, I have my father literally telling me to accomplish whatever I want, I just gotta work. I watched him work 16 hour days and come home defeated, only to wake up and do it again. I watched him spend every waking moment he was not at work actively working for my mother's needs. I watched him spend my entire childhood behind a screen so that my family could have the benefit of a single-working-parent household.
I watched him work. I saw him struggle. I copied his coping mechanisms.
Which is why it took me a full year not to crave tortilla chips. It took 9 months to stop craving alcohol. And I still haven't mastered sweets or home-baked goods or emotional-eating. I built 24 years of life on "you deserve the feel-goods from food because you did X". It won't be undone today.
I fought cold turkey for 3 months. I used vanity and pushed negativity as far as possible for 6 months.
But it wasn't enough. And it still isn't enough. I had to get another job, stay out of my apartment, stay away from my parents' house, kill myself in schoolwork and literally, literally, literally, do whatever I could do to stop thinking about food or the next time I could eat.
My goals were always my goals, but now they're bigger.
And they're not bigger because I've met the smaller ones. Maybe I have met a few of them, but they're bigger because they make me work that much harder (thank you Andy Frisella).
And, truly honestly, bigger goals make me a better person. I don't want a 6 pack to show off a bikini and get 1,000 explicit pictures from the opposite sex. I want a 6 pack to prove to myself that I can control my body and mind to reach whatever goals I want. I want a 6 pack to show you that if my 217 pound butt can do it, so can you.
All you need is love. The Beatles said it, so it must be true.
Thank you Daddy, for breeding the hustle in me.
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