Fear – Ranting and Worries :(

Well, I feel incredibly overwhelmed by my emotions at the moment. The current place I hold is one of deep uncertainties, and I’ll admit that I find my faith both lacking and strengthened at the same time.

Work – One aspect of my life which has overwhelmed me is my work. The volume of work to do, the rate at which to complete it and the myriad of ways it can be derailed is highly frustrating. I don’t think the work itself is hard – but the amount of follow-up and follow through over and over, again and again is extremely taxing. I pride myself in doing an excellent job and being detailed and extremely thorough, but the pace of my current work seems to make that difficult at best. Additionally, I am behind in my work, and feel incredibly overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to catch up when so much new stuff continues to fall in my lap. I fear getting further behind or having my failures affect the company or those I serve. I fear getting fired and losing my job and feeling like a failure. I fear never being able to work again and being prosecuted and not surviving and being taken to prison. Honestly, now that I’m writing this, I can admit that perhaps my fears – although real – are a bit fantastical and no oriented in reality.

School – This course has been hard – the work itself is not horrific, but the last two weeks of class have incredible amounts of work due. In addition, the last two weeks are when I have officially run out of steam, especially looking at the stress of my work. The 2nd to last week, I failed to pace myself and got caught in a very difficult set up. The last week of class I prepared prior to the week and still managed to do horribly – much in part due to the exhaustion from work. If I fail this course, it will be the second time failing it which could have extremely unfortunate results for my educational progression. I fear being kicked out of class and then failing to never get my bachelors. Again, looking at the situation now that it is written down, if the worst happened and I failed this class and am taken out of school, it does not mean my intelligence is lacking or I am unable to get a bachelors, it merely means I with my life circumstances I was unable to survive a class and getting my bachelors may take a few more months.

Home and Work 2.0 – Lately, work has really cracked down on overtime meaning I have been unable to get paid when working after hours. Although I have been notified I need to remain clocked in, should I get one more write up, I will be terminated. So my choice is being terminated for following the rules or not getting my work done and being terminated for my failure to do my job. Doing my job in only 40 hours feels utterly impossible, despite having 81% of the work load of previous a half year ago, I remain behind with what feels like few possibilities to honestly catch up. Due to this lovely set up, my take home pay has decreased by 80% which has created very unexpected and unwanted tight money issues. It appears the time of plenty has left – granted I live well, but paycheck to paycheck is not a fun way to survive. Prior to this, I had created a way of living where money wasn’t limitless, but I lived far enough below my income to easily set some aside for savings. That appears to have evaporated like rain on our summer roads.

Spirituality – Although I remain committed to pursuing ordination and working in ministry, I feel incredibly guilty as I often skip church to work on school work which again, my major is Christian Studies. Not sure if that is pure laziness or simple irony. I have been wondering about trying to look into getting extra time for school work via the disability office on account of my ADHD – but that feels like a cop out. The reality – it is obvious that I continue to have great difficult meeting these deadlines due to poor time management like caused by a mix of ADHD and being overworked and being playing lazy and exhausted. But church helps me! When I go to church I feel the love of God and it fills me with energy to get through the next week. Church helps me to see what is important – caring for God’s creation: people and the earth. Going to church helps my spirituality to remain stronger and more vibrant, as does daily prayer which I have remained very lax on. There are so many parts to this, if I’m honest, and I have neither the time nor the energy to really get into.

Alas, there is so much more do say, but I think I need to rest for the time being.

Thanks be to God – God lifts us up in unexpected ways (listened to a sermon that talked a great deal about the value and importance of love and marriage, including LGBT marriage today and just about started crying with gratitude and love and awe). I often feel great closeness to God during such trying times, may my heart be sensitive enough to listen to God’s voice and may my head be quiet enough for my heart to listen.

 

Amen & Blessing +

 

Journey to Health Through Bodybuilding

So its something I’ve always wanted to do – get buff.  Even typing it, it sounds weird.  This is a part of me that I don’t typically share readily – it delves into sexuality, homosexuality, lust, desire, pain, self-hatred/self-loathing, body image, feelings of inadequacy, failure, gender rolls and the gender non-binary, knowledge deficits and that’s a scratch on the surface.

I’m not writing this to show perfect grammar or spelling.  I’m not writing this to show how amazing I am.  I’m not writing this to anyone at all really – why would I possibly share what I’ve always felt I failed at?  Yet, somehow, I feel a need to share this journey, and to be fair, this journey started many years ago.

This journey seems scary to me – I know what I want (kinda) and I know how to get there (kinda) yet I have NO clue what I’m actually doing.  I guess, at some point, you just have to decided: Is it worth pursuing?  I can tell you, that I’ve enjoyed a well muscled physique since I was a wee kid.  I always enjoyed He-Man, Superman, and various cartoons that depicted the heroes with either muscular bodies or with muscular bodies and super strength.  For some reason, I kinda figured that’s what I guy should look like.

I can remember buying bodybuilding magazine when I was about 11 at the local drug store and spending hours looking at them.  At the time, I was completely innocent to the reaction going on in my body – one of lustful desire that incorporated my physiological response to such stimuli – erection.  I hid this part of me.  I knew it wasn’t socially acceptable to like bodybuilders in a sexual way, and besides, I was Mormon.  I had a plan to get married to a girl and live a regular hetero-normative life.   My, how plans change…

In grade school as well as high school, I always felt tall, yet under developed in an athletic way.  Other guys were great at sports and were aggressive about winning the game.  They appeared to love using their bodies and they bodies certainly responded.  My body seemed to forever be the lanky tall one.  I didn’t posses (nor do I now) the aggressive focus needed for athletic competitions – and so I saw myself as “other.”  Being “other” meant that I couldn’t be one of the athletes, in my mind, and sadly, that was reinforced again and again as I noticed other differences in myself compared to my fellow athletic classmates.

But still, I dreamed of being athletic, of being muscular.  On top of that dream was the underlying sexual interest in muscle and strength, especially as applied to bodybuilding.  I would often search the TV guide looking for bodybuilding shows that I could watch.  I would dream about meeting them and feeling and touching their muscle – of which I was to learn was a sexual fetish that many shared.

In mid high school, I came out of the proverbial closet and admitted to my parents that I was gay.  I was sure this would be something akin to addiction with which I could overcome and lead a regular hetero-normative life.  I spoke with a counselor at LDS family services who was of deep patience and understand.  Still, I largely shied away from talking about my muscle fetish.

I never did join a gym and stick with it.  I would work out occasionally and maybe join a gym here and there, but largely, it was empty.  I couldn’t afford a personal trainer and the gym experience was still too charged with negative emotions of failure, weakness and a lack of knowledge.

Lately, I have had some health concerns, certainly being over weight, getting tired going up stairs, feeling weak carrying anything over 30Ibs, having difficulty swallowing, GI concerns, severe fatigue and exhaustion, trouble sleeping at night, stress at work, and poor sexual function and relatively no dating prospects.  I felt like my body was about 70 and here I was only 34 – pretty much the prime of my life.

Most recently, I felt like I if I was ever going to survive getting into the gym and working out, I needed to find someone with similar goals, preferable another gay male who could understand my unusual fetish and not freak out about it.  I was lucky to find just such a guy – Brad.  He shared with me very similar experiences, goals and trials.  He had grown up to be morbidly obese, but he tackled his weight and currently is the picture of an athletic guy.  I have to admit, I look up to him a GREAT deal.  He’s agreed to train me, for free, so that I can get some footing in the gym.

We started on Monday the 10th of November.  He broke out my workouts – I was to do PUSH exercises one day, PULL exercises another day, LEG the third day and CARDIO the fourth day.  Certainly the initial two days were pretty good.  The only bad part was that working out so late I didn’t get tired until much later.  Also, the first day I tried a pre-workout which had caffeine which I don’t think helped.

That initial day I was so scared.  Yes, of course I knew what I wanted, but still – this was the realization of a long time fantasy and that fantasy becoming real (with a noted history of failure and quitting in the past) was nerve racking.  I wondered what the gym would be like, how the people would be, how the changing facilities would be etc.  It turned out, of course, to be just fine with no real interaction besides just Brad and I.  He was excellent at showing me stuff, though his strength was much greater which made me feel timid.  But, of course, I knew I had to start somewhere.

The next day was about the same.  It felt great to be using my body, and to know that I was contributing to my end goals.  Sadly, I continued to get to sleep late.  By the third day (LEGS) I was exhausted and couldn’t get in a great workout.  Still, it felt great just getting to the gym and lifting.  The fourth day, I was totally exhausted.  I had not pursued my work like I should have and my stress level was building.  I had planned to swim, but had no swim suit.  I also needed to print out different sets for swimming which I’d failed to prepare for.  Being so tired, I took the day off.

Friday – was a whole other animal.  Feeling bad for taking a day off I had texted Brad that I was excited for Friday’s workout.  Certainly, in my mind, I could simply make up for one missed day and resume.  Unfortunately, I developed severe pain in my epigastric region.  I was forced to cancel with Brad and ended up at the local urgent care.  They provided treatment which appeared to decrease the pain, but it continued for the entire night.

On Saturday, I woke up pain free.  I had plans for Saturday – work for 7-8 hours, then gym, then laundry.  Unfortunately, I was exhausted.  I texted Brad and went over to his place.  He then came shopping with me and I bought better foods to eat and snack on – fruits, meats, cheeses, etc.  By the time we got back, I was pooped.  To be fair, I hadn’t even eaten for 24 hours minus some cereal.  I ate some eggs, fruit and a peanut butter toast.  Still, I remained so tired.  I drove Brad to the gym and dropped him off, upset with myself for missing another day from the gym, but also realizing that perhaps my body either still needed to heal or is fighting off an infection.  I did however do two things that I’ve been wanting to do for this bodybuilding journey: 1. Buy protein, creatine and some mixers.  2. Start a blog for bodybuilding.  So – I may not have worked out, but still, I’ve progressed on my path to Health Through Bodybuilding.

Tomorrow, is probably work…

Life on April 29th 2011 at 9:26pm

I’m thinking about making some changes.  Guess I’m unhappy with life currently.  I’d like to work out more, and build a better body, that will come in time.  I want to pay off my debt and finally be able to have some money after making a monthly payment.  I also want to get my life in better order: do better at work, be a better worker, be better organized, and be much better at following through.

Making plans and actually implimenting them however is a different task…

Hmm, I’m sleepy, exhausted really.  So much to do, so much stress, and so much negative talk.  I have no energy to combat it all.

I need rest.

-T

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