Last.Damn.Call

What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps, cooking, so you think about food and needing to make it more edible and appealing. Maybe you think about losing a few pounds (as many women and men in their 40s ponder). Becoming what society views as more attractive. Maybe it’s shedding some negativity from your life. Cutting off contact or limiting time with people who make you feel bad. Or weeding out some old clothing or household items sitting in the basement collecting dust. Getting rid of some of the old to make room for the new.

Despite what your fat is, it’s important to not let it consume you. Most definitions of fat relate to physical weight meaning becoming more health conscious–watching what you eat and adding in exercise and whatnot. What it boils down to, for me, is trimming away excess anything in my life. It’s hard. Stupid hard. I don’t have trouble throwing away material things, let me say that. I am the first one in my house to say, “Does anyone use this (fill in the blank with some crap used as a Christmas stocking filler)” and toss it in the trash without a second thought. If only everything in life was that easy.

Drinking was once my fat. Yes, it made me fat in the physical sense in the early days. But that wasn’t the bigger picture problem, just an annoying side effect. I drank to excess. And I have no problem saying that now. I hate sayings like, “Hold my beer, watch this.” Or, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.” It’s always friggin’ 5 o’clock when you’re an alcoholic. So dumb. The one saying I still find humorous as a recovering alcoholic is, “I don’t have a drinking problem. Actually, I am really good at it!” It just makes me chuckle a little because it’s so silly. And so true. What is also true is that I have a stopping problem. That was always my problem in relation to alcohol. I had to stop. Trim the fat.

I think clutter is a recipe for disaster. I am not wearing my judging robe (just my fuzzy purple-day-off-work robe, literally) while saying this. I have plenty of physical clutter in my own home, and it’s a struggle to fight the good fight every day. My son’s feet outgrow shoes before they even look worn. Anyone with boys knows how hard they are on tennis shoes. So, when I donate them proudly and truthfully stating “barely used or like new” I am not lying. Having said that, for whatever God forsaken reason, no one in this house can throw away old shoes. I do not know what it is. They are old. They stink. Ain’t no one in this house using them to work in anyone’s garden. But for some reason, they reside here long after their eviction notice has been issued.

Have you ever felt compelled to remain “friends” with someone simply because of whatever? You grew up together. They were there for you during a tough time. You have known each other for years. They really helped you out when whatever disaster was going on in your life. It’s ok to let those friendships go. Become something you see only in your rearview mirror. Just a blurry image. How many “friends” do you have on social media? How many of those could you call in a moment’s notice to drop everything and rush over to help you because you have a flat tire and needed to be at work like 10 minutes ago? How many of their actual phone numbers do you have? Do you even know where they live currently or where they work or how many kids they have? Hell, I have Facebook friends that I think I might know kinda-sorta and just accepted their friend request because I didn’t want to upset them or hurt their feelings. They could just as easily be a weirdo or a serial killer. Probably wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings either to be quite honest. But I probably shouldn’t “friend” them either.

I want to tell you about the last time I saw my dad before he died. I had put the brakes on any relationship with him long ago. Zero contact. Zero regret. He had let his drinking consume him to the point of no return. In saying this, I do feel bad because I do believe we recover. He did not. I am a walking, talking, living, breathing example of recovery. But he was spiraling downward in a way that I could not even allow myself to be involved in. I was an alcoholic, too. Even if I didn’t know it then, I was. My son was a little over 3 years old if I recall correctly. Regardless, he was sitting in the shopping cart on a bright sunny day as we strolled up to Home Depot to buy some flowers to plant. I see a homeless man sitting next to the front door on the pavement which is not uncommon in that area. As we got closer to the building, I stopped dead in my tracks. I have heard that phrased uttered time and time again, but now I knew what it meant. I was paralyzed. That bum was my father. My dad was a homeless person. The man who taught me to bait a hook and throw a baseball and who was once the strongest man on earth (in my eyes) was reduced to sitting on display for the world to see with a bunch of trash he probably called belongings lying around him on the ground. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t let him see me. I couldn’t let him into this life I had made just for me and my family. I turned around and tried to move as quickly as I could without being noticed, got into the car, drove away, and I never looked back.

Trimming the fat. Sounds very cold in this situation, I know. But unless you can time travel back into young Lindsey’s world, you cannot understand. I don’t feel the need to justify my actions to be quite honest. I know what I know, and that’s all I need. There was no way my son was being exposed to this shell of a man that was once my father. I would have happily introduced my son to him if this was 1988 or so. But it wasn’t. And time had changed him. And me. We all say we want to protect our children, yet we are also a “You do for family” world. Sometimes you have to choose who to “do” for family, and that was an easy choice for me in the name of protecting my little bubble containing my own family at that moment in time. Doing for family in this case meant doing for my own family. I will not apologize for that.

Trimming the fat in your life can be simple things like small changes in diet and exercise. It can be harder things like parting with clutter that has some sentimental value to you but is no longer in any condition to keep. Trimming people out of your personal bubble who are not good for you is hard. But lots of good things come from hard decisions. Trimming the fat that was alcohol out of my life was hands down the biggest decision I ever made. It was also the hardest. And hands down, the best.

“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.” Anonymous

“You are only one decision away from a totally different life.” Anonymous

“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.” David Russell