(55 years ago)

news&updates

Aug
27

it’s starting to get kinda sad

The question of whether somebody needs to be dead to haunt someone… haunts him.

He was hers and yet he knew she would never be his so they went their separate ways.

Shortly afterwards he was told by his doctor that he had prediabetes. This came as both a bit of shock and no surprise. At the time he only knew two things about diabetes; it was caused by too much sugar and that if you got it eventually they’d have to cut off your feet.

It was especially dangerous to soccer players and men who made their living kicking field goals.

So he did the only thing he could do, he walked away from her.

And sugar.

The former was harder than the latter.

“You love what you love” he would say as he looked longingly at the sugar bowl as it sat undisturbed in the cabinet as his tea went sugar-less.

“You love who you love” he would say a hundred times a day as each day, day after day, some of them much longer than others, continued to be her-less.

The good news? Prediabetes can be reversed with an increase in exercise and a change in diet.

The bad?

Yes. She haunts him.

There a dozen substitutes for sugar; Sweet’N Low, Sugar Twin, Equal, NutraSweet, Sunett, Sweet One, Splenda, Stevia, Luo Han Guo fruit extracts, Neotame, Advantame. The list goes on and on.

There is no substitute, as sweet as the prospects might seem, for her.

He had brought it on himself. He would put four heaping spoonfuls of sugar in his tea. He would eat half a pie in one sitting. He drank more soda than water. He had earned every inch of prediabetes.

He had tried his best to earn every inch of her. He just couldn’t win the five inches of muscle residing slightly behind and to the left of her sternum.

He understood he would gladly trade his feet for her and it didn’t help.

The raging at the unfairness and pointlessness of it all and plotting and compromising and sitting on the deck staring up at the stars didn’t help.

Manifesting gods of fate and coincidence so he could he beg, plead and and bargain with them didn’t help.

The impotent anger that kid’s breakfast cereals have too much sugar in them didn’t help.

Recognizing that she would always pull away from him because exorcisms aren’t real didn’t help.

The pleading to no one didn’t help.

Realizing that he wouldn’t let it go of the sadness because it’s all he has left of her didn’t help.

The simmering resentment that he’ll never be imprisoned in a cage made of chocolate and be forced to eat his way out didn’t help.

Believing that sitting quiet and imagining the drive to her front door would make her think of him and her doing the same is why he thinks of her didn’t help.

Appreciating that sometimes the best view is found at the top of a landfill didn’t help.

Joining a soccer league and enjoying his feet while he still had them did, although he still refused to call it football.

Because people can change their behavior but they can’t change their mind.

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