Origin Story

Every good superhero needs an engrossing origin story.

Spiderman had the radioactive spider; Superman had the whole birth-planet-destruction thing; Batman HAS NO PARENTS; and Aquaman… well, I just assume he lost a bet in college.

So “What’s your origin story Jeff?” you might ask, if you had been coached before-hand to do so. “But you aren’t a superhero!” you might say, if you wanted to be a jerk about it. Well, I’ll tell you a little bit about it. Forgive me if I don’t go in depth on any particular parts, I’m not avoiding anything, but it’s my story and I already know it, so I will tend to summarize. Feel free to ask for any further information if you’d like it though.

I would say I’ve struggled with weight my entire life, but that would be a lie as I found that it actually came quite easily to me. While I have always been overweight, I used to fall into that ‘only 10-15 pounds overweight’ category, nothing really major. I had a lot of great things going for me in life. I started my first company when I was 14 doing multimedia design work. By the time I was 17 I had bypassed the remainder of high school (correspondence courses through Texas Tech that I paid someone else to actually do because I was busy), begun doing contracting work  (classic ASP development), met a girl, and fallen in love. When I was 18, I had gotten engaged to said girl and had a son on the way. It was looking to be a pretty idyllic life.

… and then the bastard on the right showed up.

In a cruel twist of fate, my fiance and unborn son passed away.

I opted not to deal with this at the time by sinking myself into work. I worked pretty much every waking hour I could. Then the dot.com bubble burst. I ended up being a guy who had not dealt with the tragedy and had two things: Money and time.

I did not react well. To be quite frank, I spent my time and money doing things I shouldn’t have been doing and I don’t really remember the following year.

I emerged from this period a stronger person in some way. I had at least regained the will to live. However, the emotional walls I put in place to keep people at bay were strong. I decided that I could not withstand another devastating loss like that and so I embarked on a mission to prevent it. I started rapidly gaining weight, trying to make my outer self match my inner self. Afterall, if I was a fat bastard that no one wanted to love, I wouldn’t have to deal with losing that love.

As it turns out, there was one tiny flaw in that plan. As my emotional and mental walls started crumbling, and my true personality started coming back out, the physical wall was not preventing that love as I had thought it would. Turns out the real me is a pretty awesome guy that women still found attractive. I know, I know, damn the luck, right?

It has been 11, going on 12 years since that tragedy in my past. I am finally at a point where my mind, emotions and spirit have reached a harmonious balance.

It is now time for my body to fall in line.

Since I value transparency, I will be chronicling my journey here. It is not a journey of weight-loss. It is a journey to become “Me” again.

Feel free to follow along.