An Old Shell Shirt & Some Medicine

Cutter's Log - Stardate 3102.41.60
Current Song - Fresh (Daft Punk)

I"ve been on this weight loss crusade for 7 months now. Other than losing the weight itself, this crusade has been sort of uneventful.

People have told me that I look lighter than the last time they saw me. I didn't believe them because I thought it was just kind words to encourage me along the journey. Actually, I look at my body every day and I don't see any substantial changes in it. But they did. It didn't make sense to me.

It all made sense to me yesterday.

I am way behind in getting my laundry done. I've exhausted my usual array of Shell work clothes. So I had to dig deep in my closet for something else. I had these old Kevin Harvick racing shirts from 3-4 years ago which are now outdated. I think it's been about three years since I last wore them, and I weighed about 335 pounds at that time.

I can remember wearing these shirts. Nothing fit perfectly on me, and this particular shirt I pulled from the closet was the best one that fit me back then (as I remembered from the small hole in the back of it). I put on this shirt, a 4X, and it didn't feel right - not how I remembered it fitting me back then.

Turns out this shirt had plenty of width on it. I didn't remember the shirt being that wide. It looked like I was wearing a dress, but it was still better than the stinky, wrinkled work shirts in my dirty clothes hamper.

This shirt has a yellow top with a red middle. The Shell logo on one shoulder and the number "29" on the other shoulder. That hasn't changed.

When I was doing my usual restroom cleaning, I took a look at the mirror. This mirror is low enough to also show my pants. Just looking at myself with this shirt on, it seemed different. Then I tried something.

I took the bottom left corner of my shirt and tugged it all the way to the left. There was about 15 inches of shirt to the left of me. Then I wrapped the shift behind my back. It made for a tighter middle around me. While I looked at that image, I noticed the Shell logo and the "29." They seemed bigger than what I remembered them being. At that point it hit me - I can see the change.

I thought back to all of those ugly mirror images of me with that shirt on when I wore it regularly. Then I compared those to today, and sure enough I looked smaller than what I did back then.

A little point of pride right there.

I feel great about it, and I needed that because I haven't felt great in recent weeks.

I'm standing around like a log, and not too long ago I met someone who is the exact opposite of me. I'm being run around in circles throughout all of this. However, instead of being annoyed, I'd rather soak in all of this life and energy and try to adapt it to myself. In other words, I haven't had fun in a long time and this could help me rediscover what that was once like.

Somehow I see the potential for some chemistry.