It was June of 2011. I was locked inside the nut house. The loony bin. The Shiver Inn. After check-in, I was allowed about twenty fours hours to retreat into a coma that was induced by a mixture of depression, fatigue, and various sedatives.

Upon awakening, I realized that the phenobarbital and Subutex where not going to be a sufficient substitute for my usual breakfast of champions. Suffice to say, I was pissed off. Half dead, and not happy about the alive part, I was forced to get up and go to group therapy.

Upon getting seated in a room full of strangers, with a therapist I have never met, and a thousand pounds of bad attitude squished between my temples, John, the therapist, asked,

“Wilson, how are you feeling?”

I replied,

“F*ck off.”

John smirked a bit, as if this salutation was nothing new to him.

He then said,

“You have to be more specific. How do you feel?”

I responded by saying,

“Like sh*t.”

He laughed. Everyone laughed. We laughed partially because crazy people laugh, but mostly because everyone understood my situation.

John went on to say,

“You have to use a ‘feeling word’. When I ask you how you feel, you have to give me a feeling word. Happy, sad, optimistic, angry, confident, scared, excited, nervous….”

The list went on.

Anyways, I’m no doctor, and I certainly know very little about psychology, but I do know that my friend John left out a feeling word- that word is FAT, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. I spent all weekend feeling it, and woke up this morning plagued by the same characteristic.

Fat.

It feels terrible. It crawls all over you and causes you to pull your garments away from your body, cause you are not comfortable in your own skin. I hate it. It’s all over me today, like some sort of cobweb that I walked through and can’t seem to remove. I need to shake this feeling, but it requires work…and I hate working for what I want.

The solution is some good clean food, lots of water, and a trip to the gym, but my tendency is to eat pizza and “start tomorrow”. However, I’m not required to function based on my past tendencies. I’m gonna get to work and do what is right for me, my family, and those around me.

I’m gonna try to refocus today and see if I can get on track. I’d like to know how you are feeling. Just so you know….

Fat is a feeling word.

Make good choices today.

Peace, Love, and all things Beef related,

Beefcake