I grew up where I live now, in a very small town in Southwest Virginia. When I was born, I was only a couple of pounds, and was born three months earlier than expected. I was kept at the hospital for a while, and the final verdict (or speculation, rather) was that I was a perfectly normal, healthy baby boy. Cool stuff, I think.

I grew up as an incredibly skinny kid. When I was 2-or-3 years old and scared to sleep alone, I’d sleep in between my parents (And uh, as I got older I never did apologize for ruining the things they could have done, but I digress!). My father would always be scared he would accidentally roll over top of me. I didn’t eat that much growing up in my early childhood days. I focused on running around outside my house and playing with my friends. My mother was 5′6 and my father was 5′7, so my expectancy to be tall was little to be expected of.

I was around 10-years-old, only 5′1-5′2, when I started eating a lot of junkfood. I got tired of my mom’s cooking and, since we had a garden, I grew a disdain for garden food. So I’d sneak Slim Jims into my room and eat them for dinner. I’d watch a movie with my father, he’d get out some barbecue potato chips, and we’d eat a bag every night. My father suddenly passed away when I was 12, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, emotionally. Usually when somebody is depressed like I was, they start eating a lot. I didn’t. I listened to music and I began to write. So I guess that’s when I started losing the unnecessary pounds I had put on.

I was 13-years-old in the 8th grade. Still chubby, I participated quite a bit in gym and met one of my lifelong friends that year. He and I would hang out in my backyard and pass football, baseball, shoot basketball. Hell, I lived near two baseball fields on a park, and we’d go over there and act like we were playing in the World Series. We’d pitch to each other. We’d throw out our arms. We’d run around the bases acting like wild childs. One of my fondest memories of that was acting like Hank ‘Henry’ Aaron when he’d hit his 715th career home run to pass Babe Ruth on the all time home run list. We’d imitate the Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson’s incredible pinch hitting home run from the 1988 World Series.

I grew taller. I lost weight. I grew to be 6′2-6′3. And that’s what I am as of today. Though, I still have a bit of flab, it’s hardly noticeable unless you’re feeling around my stomach (and that’s only accepted for foreplay, but again I digress). I still play the occasional pick-up game of basketball, though I haven’t thrown a baseball in a couple of years. I haven’t thrown a football in a couple of years. So the only healthy living outlet I’ve partaken in is the healthy running of basketball. Back and forth, down a court, several (more than several) times a [pick-up] game.

When I look back at the unhealthy choices I made as a kid, I think it reflects on how I eat now. The Slim Jim’s, Wise Barbecue Potato Chips, Sour Patch Kid Gummies, those delicious Sugar Straws. I’m almost just as bad now with my idiotic eating of fast food and other restaurants where I make poor choices of food that taste good but emanate terrible consequences later. I have daily headaches. I have one right now. I chug water every day to hope that I can urinate or defecate it out. I’m a Tylenol addict. It’s pathetic, but that’s why I’m writing this blog.