Before the Path

My path had no purpose.

When my dad passed away, it brought with it all the complicated emotions that come with losing a parent… especially when the relationship wasn’t simple. There were things unresolved between us. Things I had carried for years.

But near the end I let a lot of that go. I spent time with him. I tried to focus on the good memories from when I was growing up. It just didn’t make sense to hold onto old anger anymore.

Still, after he passed, and as I was going through the grieving process, something hit me.

I was lying in bed thinking about the age difference between us. My dad was only about twenty years older than me.

Twenty years.

In the big picture, that’s not very much time.

And the older you get, the more you realize how fast time can move. Sometimes it really feels like you’re picking up speed and heading downhill.

That thought hit me hard.

What if that were me twenty years from now?

What if I was the one lying on my deathbed looking back at my life?

And that’s when it happened.

People talk about your life flashing before your eyes. For me it wasn’t a flash. It was more like a sledgehammer.

All at once I saw it.

The weight. I weighed over 400 pounds. Hell, I could barely walk to the mailbox without stopping to catch my breath.

But worse than that were the dreams.

All the things I had talked about doing. Planned. Imagined.

Projects I wanted to start. Projects I started and never finished.

And most of the time I didn’t even quit… they just slowly faded away until one day I realized I wasn’t doing them anymore.

I saw a lifetime of procrastination. Years of putting things off. Years of numbing myself out with food, alcohol, games, television… anything that helped me avoid thinking about what I was or wasn't doing, of how much I had hated myself and the shame that came with it.

I had come to the conclusion that this is just who I am.

I was a quitter.

I was never good enough.

I was someone who dreamed about things but never actually did them.

And suddenly it just hit me all at once. I'll be laying on my deathbed, and I'll be filled with regret.

Nothing but regret.

And that thought started looping in my head.

I’m going to die filled with regret. I'm going to die.... filled with regret

Over and over.

At some point I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed just crying. Oh, I'm not talking about nice, quiet, dignified cry either. Straight out sobbing. I'm talking the full Niagara Falls version. Tears, snot, the whole mess. I could barely breathe.

It was ugly.

It was my breaking point.

I was staring at two paths.

One was a seemingly impossible path to change… real change.

The other was a dark path. A dead end. A path you don’t come back from.

And I knew I didn’t want that ending.

I didn’t know how I was going to change.

I just knew I couldn’t keep living the way I had been.