benjamminb6’s BodyBlog

So, I have finally decided to take a chance and do something that I swore I would never ever do.  I have moved to Reno, as of yesterday, to be closer to my daughter.  This is a very big and scary step for me, but I have spent the past 7 years convincing myself that I don’t belong here and won’t be happy here, and finding reasons not to move here, but I finally caved in after a long talk with Mayah, with my friends and family, and some real prayer and soul searching.

Mayah has been asking me to move here, especially since her mom had a new baby, and things in Orange County just weren’t working out for me at all, so I took that as a sign that I should do something new.  My real friends will always be my friends, but aside from them, I had nothing holding me in Orange County anymore.  No job, I broke up with Megan, so no girlfriend, nobody to go to Disneyland with, etc.  I will miss the beach, and the Angels games, but I can go back down on my days off to visit friends and do those things if I want.  And I can drive over to visit my mom in San Francisco and go to the beach there and go watch the Angels when they play against Oakland.  My friends and I have all migrated in different directions in our lives, so I wasn’t really spending a whole lot of time with any of them anyway, so not that much will change in that regard.

I guess the biggest thing is that I started to think about how Mayah will view me when she is my age.  I don’t know my dad at all, and wouldn’t care if he died tomorrow.  And Heather felt the same way about her dad, Megan felt the same way about her dad…..it seems to be a prevailing trend these days, and I would hate for Mayah to grow up and feel that way about me.  Also, she complained to me that she thinks I’m not around enough and told me that it hurts her feelings, and she accidentally called me Jordan twice (Jordan is her stepdad), which was kind of a bummer, so I just decided that when I am an old man, she will be the most important thing to me, and I want to know that I did the best that I could for her.  And right now, that means being here.  I may end up moving again when the winter comes if I hate it here, but at least for this summer, I am going to spend as much time with her as I can while she is out of school, and work hard to pay down my debts and save some money.  Roger and I have been talking a lot about starting a business together sometime soon, so I need to work and get focused on everything.  It’s definitely scary to be here and not know anyone, but I was basically alone in Orange County too, and not having other distractions should really help me to focus in on getting my body into perfect shape.  As soon as I get new running shoes, I will begin my marathon training too, which will be a challenge at these high elevations, but the lack of humidity and the cooler weather will be helpful and I think that for now I will enjoy the change of scenery and it will feel a little bit like an extended vacation, sort of how Vegas felt.

All of this should be exciting, a little scary, and very interesting, but overall will do me good, and will be great for Mayah.  As for my workouts, I have been hitting the gym pretty hard these past two weeks, but have not done a ton of cardio, and since I have been traveling a lot between San Fran, Orange County, and here, I have been eating very poorly, but I plan on going grocery shopping today and getting some good clean food, and going back to my old healthy diet.  I will be upping my cardio again, probably doing 45 minutes to an hour in the morning, and another 30 minutes after I work out at night.  I already did an hour this morning, and it felt really good!!!  I cant wait to lift tonight!

My little studio apartment is small and kinda ghetto lol, but the complex is quiet, the rent is insanely cheap, and I have great air conditioning haha.  I will be alone and it should be peaceful.  Other than that, I am just gonna be working hard on all aspects of my life, from Mayah, to work, to my body, my marathon, playing better poker, making new friends, and maybe I will even meet a nice cute girl up here, though I’m not keeping my fingers crossed there lol, I don’t think Reno girls are really my type! 

Sooo it has been a difficult and thought provoking week, and many changes are ahead for me.  Since I have been back down in Orange County, I have been working out really hard and heavy, and feel great about the quality of my weight lifting sessions, but my diet still is very poor since I have been traveling a lot, and I am not staying in my own place, and my cardio has been very minimal, 20 minutes a day or less usually.  So I need to rev up the cardio a little bit, and improve the diet again a LOT a bit lol, but overall, it has just felt really nice to get back in the gym after missing so many days last week.

As for my personal life……everything is topsy turvy.  I went from seeing Megan every day and having an amazing relationship and friendship with her, to not even speaking to her, and it all happened in the blink of an eye.  The weird thing is that it all ended really without any good reason.  She just sort of felt like we weren’t perfect for each other for a few reasons, and even though we got along fabulously, never fought, and always had amazingly great days and super hot sex, she wanted to keep looking.  I respect that, although I was disappointed in how it all turned out, but it was odd to me that we couldn’t even stay friends.  That was the strangest relationship I have ever been a part of, and I think I will take a lot from it into future situations.  But more importantly than Megan or anything else, I went and spent some really good time with Mayah and got to talk to her a lot.  She is only 7, but she is a smart girl, and I am very lucky to be her dad.  She really wants me to come to Reno and be closer to her, and I think the new baby has a lot to do with it, but the more I have thought about it, the more it seems like the right thing to do.  I do not have a relationship with my dad because he wasn’t there when I was a kid, and if he died tomorrow I wouldn’t care or even go to his funeral, and I don’t want Mayah to grow up and feel that way towards me.  I need to develop a strong bond with her now and be around her more, so I am going to swallow my pride and just go for it.  It will be a difficult transition, and I don’t really know anyone up there, but spending more time with her will be good for us both, the cost of living up there is very cheap, and a fresh start will be nice.  I wont have so many distractions, and can really focus on getting in amazing shape, and maybe even spend some more time playing live poker since the casinos are there.  I think that I will be lonely and bored at first, but eventually I will really be glad that I made the move.  And if I’m not glad, and I just decide that I hate it, I can always come back, so it’s not like I don’t have options.  I will also be closer to my mom up there, and can still drive over to Oakland to watch Angel’s games when they are in town.  It is definitely a really scary thing to think about, going to a new place all alone, but I enjoy a challenge, and look forward to trying something new for a while and not being so stressed out about money.  So the plan is to go up this week and look for a job and a place to live.  I can probably stay at my mom’s in the meantime and just make the drive back and forth when I have interviews or whatever.  So good luck me!!

So this has been a difficult and sloppy week to say the least.  I was working out extremely hard and diligently every single day until I left Orange County to come up to see my mom and Mayah.  I worked out on Monday the 9th before I drove up, but since I got here I have only gotten 1 workout in all week!!!  I worked out on Wednesday, but haven’t been able to work out since, and it is very frustrating.  The gym is not close by, and the time that I did make the drive out to the gym, I spent 35 minutes trying to find parking before giving up and coming home.  Oakland sucks ass, especially the parking, so I will be glad to be back in Orange County tomorrow night, and I can’t wait to get to the gym and work my ass off to make up for the lost time.  The days off are probably good for my body, I need the rest, but I have also been eating horribly since I have been up here!!  The time that I spent with Mayah was a lot of fun, but we ate TONS of junk food and I feel like a fatty!  So I am really looking forward to getting back on track this week and pushing myself really hard in the gym, as well as eating cleaner and feeling better about myself lol.

I need to start planning for my marathon training!!!!  I had intended to start my training by now, but was unsure as to where I will run, where I will be living, and if I would have a training partner or not.  But I can’t focus on everything else, I need to just focus on me and taking care of business and getting things done.

I’m not sure what I am doing about a place to live still, but I feel confident in my ability to survive and figure things out.  It has been nice being up north for a few days and seeing my mom and Mayah, but being here really makes me sure that I want to be in Orange County, and that I am not interested in staying here for the whole summer, even though it would be easy and would save me money.  I just don’t like being here and I think I would go crazy if I stayed here any longer than necessary. 

I’m driving back to the OC tomorrow evening, and the 1st thing I will be doing when I get there is hitting the gym and blasting my arms!!!  Tuesday I have a job interview, and I have another interview on Friday, so I am hoping to set something up on Wednesday or Thursday somewhere else as well.  Other than that, I will just be working out like a madman and seeing my friends some.  Finding a job has taken a lot longer, and been much more difficult than I had planned!!!  But I am making positive steps, and I think that in a few weeks, I will be glad that I went through all of this and pulled myself out of my funk.

Mayah was really cute!!!  She is such a good girl, and I am really proud of her!  Laura is a weirdo, and we don’t get along anymore, but she has done an excellent job with Mayah, and she is a good mom.  Mayah is so well behaved and well adjusted.  So many kids these days are out of control and rude, but Mayah is not at all like that, and I owe Laura a huge debt of gratitude for keeping her in line despite her surroundings.  Anyway, these next 2 to 3 weeks will be crucial times for me and my direction for the rest of the year, so good luck to me, and hopefully I can start working asap!  GO LAKERS!!!!

So my workouts the past few days have been OUTSTANDING!!!!  I have been mixing it up a lot and doing exercises that I don’t normally do.  I did my arms yesterday and my chest today, and both look pumped and fuller than ever!  I feel great about my workouts, and am in some of the best shape of my life, though my abs still need some work as does my back and my legs.  I have been working my abs regularly, and they feel harder than ever and are showing nicely, but to really carve them out, I need to do a little more cardio and stop with the "occasional" cheating in my diet lol.  I think if I had been eating 100% clean and doing an hour of cardio every day instead of just 30 minutes for the past 2 weeks, my abs would be INSANE!  Anyway, I am still happy with my progress and glad that I have stuck with it despite everything else going on in my life.

Jenn and I have sort of patched things up, so I’m glad.  At least I know that she doesn’t hate me .  As far as where I will be living in 2 weeks, it is still very much up in the air.  I have an open invitation to spend the summer in San Francisco living rent free with my mom and spending some more time with my daughter, Mayah.  This sounds like an awesome opportunity, and I would be given a job when I got there, but Mayah would only be there part of the time, and when she wasn’t around, I would feel lonely and I would miss Orange County, my friends, Angel’s games, etc.  The weather would undoubtedly be cooler up there, which would be great, and I do need to spend more time with Mayah, but I also hate to lean on my mom for help every time I am struggling.  I am a grown up, and I need to stand on my own two feet and solve my own problems.  It’s time for me to help myself, even if that means struggling for a while in order to get things going.  So there are definitely pros and cons to going up there, but I think that if I can find a decent job and a place to live here in the next two weeks, then I am going to stay and try to get myself upright on my own.

I really need to work so I can take care of myself, but more than that, I need to be taking care of Mayah!!!  And if I had money, I could spend more time with her, so I just need to get myself going.  I also would love to have some cash to go back to Vegas for a few days.  I have free rooms and free food whenever I can go, so I just need money for gambling and gas, and it would be awesome to go relax for a few days and see some of my friends.  It’s sad how important money is these days, but it really does make the world go ’round.  I could use some new supplements too, which of course isn’t cheap!  So I have a few prospects, but I really need to find a job this week and start getting things in order.  By this time next year I hope to have run a marathon, paid off my debts, and be in perfect shape.  All of those things will take time, dedication, and money, but if I’m working hard and taking care of business, I should be able to manage it all.  I would also like to find someone to have a serious relationship with!!!  I’m not sure where I will be relationship wise in a few weeks, but I’m at the point in my life where I want to find someone that I can develop a real relationship with.  In 4 years I plan on being married or at least heading in that direction, and I want more kids, so to get to that point, I need to find someone in the next year or so that is looking for the same things, and will be ready in the next 4 years also, and most importantly, someone who will love Mayah and love me unconditionally.  And lastly, Kellee…….I love you, thanks for being such a great friend .