Progress

A few months ago I was a size 46, tipping the scale at 323 lbs. Anyone who really knows me knows that’s the heaviest I’ve ever been. Life was life at the time, and it showed. Oh believe me it showed.

I didn’t jump on some extreme program or pretend discipline comes in a bottle. I just got honest with myself and focused on moderation. Consistency over chaos.

Today I pulled out an old pair of jeans I couldn’t even get past my thighs back then. 40x32 and they fit. Yeah, they’re skinny jeans, that’s a separate conversation, but they fit without pain or denial.

I’m down to 275 lbs now. Almost 50 pounds gone in a few months. No shortcuts. No hype. Just doing what needed to be done.

Goal’s 250-255, and I’m not rushing it. One second at a time. One decision at a time.

Progress doesn’t need applause. It just needs proof.

Honestly, I’m just grateful that things are moving the way they are. For a long time I lived waiting for the other shoe to drop, always expecting the anchor to fall. That constant tension, like peace was temporary and punishment was scheduled.

I don’t live in that headspace anymore.

I don’t even take life day by day. I take it second by second. I don’t know what’s coming next, and for the first time, I’m okay with that. There’s comfort in not bracing for impact all the time.

And yeah, I’m genuinely happy about these damn jeans. That was a real victory for me. A couple months ago I couldn’t even get into them, and that hit hard because I wore them last year. That weight wasn’t me. It felt like watching myself drift away.

Now they fit again. That alone feels like reclaiming ground. It opens my wardrobe back up, but more than that, it opens me back up. Proof that change is possible when you stop punishing yourself and start taking care of yourself.

Small wins matter. This one earned its place.

Rebuilding

What Kensington Left in Me

I used to think my life would end before it ever really began. Back then, nobody expected me to live past twenty-one. Truth be told, neither did I. When you grow up in a place like Kensington during the years I did, your future feels like a rumor you’re not meant to hear.

I carried anger like it was oxygen, walked streets that taught me to keep my head on a swivel, and made choices that could’ve buried me without anyone being surprised. There was a time when my greatest ambition was to go out on Somerset Street in a blaze of confrontation, as if destruction was the only ending a man like me deserved. That was the mindset — warped, reckless, and born from a childhood where chaos felt like the only language I spoke fluently.

But here’s the strange thing: with distance, with age, with scars that cooled into wisdom, I don’t regret those years. I don’t want to relive them, and you couldn’t drag me back to Kensington today, but I’m grateful for what it carved into me.

The trials, the bad decisions, the near-misses — they forged the man I eventually grew into. Every wrong turn taught me how to recognize the right ones. Every moment I thought I was finished showed me a way to keep going. Every dark corner became a map I’d one day navigate my way out of.

If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t fix a thing. Not because the past was good — most of it wasn’t — but because without it, I don’t know who I’d be. Kensington didn’t give me comfort, but it gave me clarity. It showed me the version of myself I never wanted to become and the strength required to walk away from that path.

I’m forty-three now — twice the age anyone expected me to reach, plus one. And every year past twenty-one feels like a personal rebuttal to a fate I refused to accept.

Day by day, it looked like nothing was changing. But when I look back, everything is different. And I’m still here. Still moving. Still becoming.

Ultimate Dilemma 2

Real terror? Not death. Death is polite. Death knocks. Taps its little bony knuckle and waits on the welcome mat.

The fear comes before the knock. In the space where breath forgets itself. In the knowing that we don’t know what we know we shouldn’t know. The mystery behind the last door on the last hallway of the last dream.

Death is the riddle every mind hums under its pillow. Every culture scribbles the same wrong answer in different colors. Paradise, punishment, reincarnation, oblivion…one truth wearing many masks and no man can wear one mask to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which one may be true. 

We whisper about it. Giggle. Pretending our bones aren’t counting down behind our skin. But everyone hears the ticking. Tick. Tick. Tickticktick.

Mortals race the clock because the clock is racing them. They paint to be remembered. They love to leave fingerprints. They build monuments so the dust has to climb over them politely.

But imagine, stretch it out, imagine forever. Forever-ever-never-ending-ever.

No stakes. No endings. No shadows to shape the light. Just a long, long corridor with no doors and no windows and the wallpaper starts whispering your name.

Immortality is not a gift. It is a loop. A curse that folds time so many times it tears.

Without death, life is flavorless soup. Lukewarm, eternal, and judging you.

Death is the silent sculptor. Carving meaning by threatening to take it away. Shadow paints the sun. Silence gives the music teeth.

Don’t love death. Don’t hate death. Just bow when she passes. She is the only queen whose crown fits everyone… eventually.