Why Do I Blog? And How Offensive Do I Get?

I don't know if I ever actually said why I'm blogging.

I had toyed with the idea of keeping a blog for awhile, but what really pushed me into doing it was the surgery. At the time I had to absorb a lot of information and sort through a lot of thoughts and issues pertaining to bariatric surgery.

So I suppose the push to actually do it was the surgery. I wanted to keep an account of what happened in case other people might search for anecdotal evidence of what it was like for me.

I decided early on not to keep it just about bariatric surgery, though. I knew that I'd run out of information. It would get repetitive very early on, I thought, and besides that, the information I passed on would have a bias from my life. My life is affected by other things; my technology obsessions, my Asperger's, even facing the possibility of my death in the surgery brought into question my religous views. As a result I decided to open the blog to being bariatric surgery with commentary from my point of view of my life.

I didn't want to define my life by the surgery. But at the same time I cannot escape that I have largely defined my life by my weight, my obesity; after more than a few decades the obesity had come to define too much of who I was and shape much of what I had become. Hence my blog name and strong obesity/diet/WLS bias.

But at the same time I do put items in that are somewhat controversial. I'm not out to poke sticks into wasp nests; I don't aim the offensive guns just to generate controversy or offend people.

Besides, if I wanted to do that, I could. It would be way to simple. But pointless

I figure my audience is far too small for my posts to cause ripples. But I do on occasion post things that some would find offensive.

It's nothing personal.

Posts regarding religion are showing my viewpoint of the world; it's part of what shapes my worldview. It's supposed to help illustrate part of why I believe what I do, why I understand the world the way I understand it.

I haven't had any complaints, so if anyone has read something they took offense to he or she hasn't voiced it.

But I thought I'd put this in just to clarify things a little. I wanted to do a blog for awhile. But I actually did it because of the surgery, and since then I've used it to act as a sounding board for who I am. It's a way to send my little voice into the big wide ether; I don't pretend that others will pay attention or even that it would make a difference to others, but there's always the chance that this can help create a legacy in part for my children to have after I'm gone, or get some insight into who I was long ago.

My father is still alive, but I have almost zilch knowledge of what he was like growing up. He's simply not an open person. I don't think he's ever even going to read this blog...I know only bits and pieces of his childhood history. I'm hoping that this is a record for my kids to go back to and find out more about where I came from, my beliefs, my worldview, and to a degree the problems I encountered in this period of my life.

I suppose this blog, potentially offensive bits and all, are just a way of staking a little corner for my voice among a chorus of millions out there. It's not much. But it's something.

Fear Of Success

I work in technology. To be more specific I work in technology support; if the users need software installed, corrupted profiles fixed, systems moved or mice cleaned I end up having to head out to fix it. I also monitor servers, configure servers, try to keep electronic point of sales systems running and field calls from users complaining about forgetting passwords or slow login times. Overall if it's plugged into the network and someone has an issue with it I may get the call for working on it in addition to maintenance chores on equipment users usually aren't even aware exist unless one of them malfunctions.

After many years of dealing with various issues that go with the job...often repeating myself over and over...hearing the same issues crop up every month...the job wears on you. Issues of satisfaction in the workplace are a whole post or two if their own.

What I have found myself doing, however, is wondering about what it would be like to switch careers. I have two or three other interests which I've seriously considered trying to move into and so far have not taken the leap. The problem is that there are always perfectly legitimate reasons not to pursue them; I make decent money for my area (although career guides say I'm underpaid for my job and education...it is a problem with the industry), jobs are difficult to come by now, I have become used to things like a roof and heating and food, change is hard..

All of these are, from what I can tell, legitimate reasons to hesitate moving to a different career.

But in my times of introspection I have asked myself if these are the real reasons I don't try changing. They are certainly factors, but the reasons I don't?

The answer I find myself wondering if it isn't the true bug in the soup is what if I'm afraid of finding out that I'm not good at those things?

I've failed to lose (and keep off) weight. I am not a big financial or social success. I worry constantly about bills and raising my kids correctly. I don't even know if I can lose weight with the surgery without failing at that.

If I don't try to do these other career pursuits then my fears of failing are just fears, not confirmation of my ineptitude.

As time passes though I have a little more reminder of why I consider a career change. At some point I may end up with more need to escape than fear of failure. Have any readers made career shifts voluntarily and not necessarily out of necessity? Where you scared to do it and if so how did you face and overcome those fears?

A Thank-You

I've focused quite a bit here about the problems I've been having and not enough on the good things. While I'll still put in the bad...this is supposed to be a record of the bad as well...I realize I need to focus a little more on the positive aspects of the operation.

I'll start out with this post where I thank a couple people. Lee is a follower of the blog who started emailing me. He has difficulties in his life adapting to some of the post-op lifestyle changes, but he sent me a number of emails where he focused on getting me to look at the positives. He is many more months into this life change than I am, so he has some perspective on what he's talking about.

Second was an email from an online acquaintance I hadn't emailed in a month. He is a frequenter on a mail list for Ubuntu-users help; knowledgeable and ever helpful, he's one of the common names on the list for people seeing assistance. I had stopped following activity on the mailing list after my surgery. It's a place of much drama, I had enough drama in my own life to deal with, and more important I was getting short tempered and easily frustrated and having to slog through a hundred or more messages a day with the same issues over an over again with the same answers and same requests not to top post or not hijack topics was starting to get to me.

So like I said...I stopped following.

Imagine my surprise when I was gone nearly a month and then I found an email from NoOp, one of the closest things the list has to a wizard on the list, waiting for me. He was asking how my surgery had gone because he hadn't heard anything lately. I was shocked. To be honest I didn't think anyone on the list would notice or care that I had disappeared.

Between Lee and NoOp I was put into an emotional place where I needed to reevaluate my situation and see that yes, I have problems, but I also have been making progress. I can move more easily. The quarter-sized hole in my gut is closer to a nickel-sized hole now. I managed to stick to roughly forty to sixty ounces of milk and three 4 ounce pureed servings of food per day. I can get up more easily and slowly, very slowly, I'm increasing my ability to move and adapt to my healing and sore muscles. I can get through most of a day of work without falling asleep at the keyboard or curling over in pain or suffering outbursts of pure honesty of what is on my mind when I find yet another person making one and a half to two times my income is not able to follow simple directions nor use complicated adjectives to describe what is actually happening to their computer.

So thank you Lee and thank you NoOp. I don't know if you guys will see this note or not, but thank you for your help in seeing that my life is more than a faux bullet wound in the tummy and that there is progress being made in my healing process.