I sit here in my living room, watching a good football game, thinking about 2023. 2022 was not bad. I’ve had better years. 1981, the year I enlisted. 1982, the year I started college. 1987, the year I graduated. 1989, the Year I got married. 1990, the year I had my first child, Jessica. 1995, the year I got my Master’s Degree. 1999, the year my second child Carole was born. 2000, the year I reconciled with my wife, and helped make my family whole again. 2001, the year I became a school administrator. 2004, the year I became a school safety specialist. 2011, the year I was selected by my peers as Indiana’s Middle School Assistant Principal of the Year. 2016, the year Roman, my first grandson was born. And finally, 2018, the year my namesake, Stevie, was born.
Throughout those years shitty things happened as well. I’m not going to enumerate those because I made a conscious decision many, many years ago that my life would not be defined by the negative. I have made some truly horrendous mistakes. I have borne the costs of those mistakes, but I set those aside to focus on the great things in my life.
When I was young, I often embellished things to make my life seem more exciting, Maybe a lot of young people do that, I don’t know. I just know that I did. At 58, I look back now and my life was exciting as it was. I’ve got the scars, and the true-life stories to prove it!
As my wife and I continue our preparations for our trip to England and Cymru, I am in the throes of a full-blown Crohn’s flare-up, always an awesome wake-up call. The drug I’ve been using, Entyvio, has done what Remicaid, Humira, Stelara, and others have done, failed to put my Crohn’s in remission. Now it looks like I’ll be giving Skyrizi a try. Hopefully that will be started, and won’t interfere with our trip. Either way, I’m going, so…
2023 is knocking on the door, and it’s time for the resolutions. I’m sharing them with you so that I’ll have some measure of accountability. I’m 58, I weigh 320lbs, and I definitely need to make some changes. I work from home, and that has led to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle that has not helped in the least. So, stop one, stop putting stupid food in my mouth. Cut out the sugars, cut out the fast food, eat clean or not at all. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Move to live. I don’t need fancy weights, Peletons, Tonals, or some professional coach yelling at me. I just need to move, Walk, do my PT stretches and exercises. Take my buddy Yuki in walks. No monthly fees, no overhead, just me and the earth under my feet, just the way God intended. I want to be able to get around London, Cymru and Manchester without looking like a decrepit old man, so a-walking I will go. My goal is 15 pounds by wheels wet. That’s slightly more than a pound a week, and that is eminently doable. I’ll take more, but I have my goal.
I tend to sit around the living and do little around the house. I have projects backed up that need doing. The stairwell to the basement needs painting, the sidewalk pavers in the front yard need redoing and my shed needs painting. One at a time. As the Winter Warlock sang in Santa Claus is Coming to Town, “Put One Foot in Front of the Other.”
So, “Rhowch un droed o flaen y llall”, Put one foot in front of the other.
Tonight, all of the great things that have happened to me are here with me. We will countdown the ball drop, hug and kiss each other, and sip some Penderyn Welsh Whiskey and some Prosecco, and go to bed. Tomorrow starts my steps toward better choices.
Meditations of a Bald, Fat Guy 
