2023: My year of escape

I escaped a broken relationship, a toxic parent, morbid obesity and much more

I didn’t escape having the world’s reddest lips.

Well, we’re at the end of 2023. Congratulations! Barring a nuke being detonated in the next 14 hours, we’ve made it to 2024: where are our flying cars, and why are we not living in a Black Mirror-style simulation yet?

This was an odd year for me personally. I mostly spent it making decisions which would turn out to be terrible, then realising my mistakes and reversing at speed, like a honking dump truck full of shit. Which brings me to my first achievement…

I escaped not being able to wipe my own arse

I’m too sexy for my shit, too sexy for my shit, I can’t wipe it.

This was me on New Year’s Day 2023. Wasn’t I beautiful? The good news is that since this picture was taken, I lost three stone, travelling the long road from ‘morbidly obese and unable to wipe my own bum’ to ‘only just obese and perfectly able to wipe my own bum, which was still fat’. The bad news is I piled half of the weight back on over Christmas, but we’re not into non-bum-wiping danger territory yet.

While I never want to return to morbid obesity, I have learned from my ongoing weight battle to be more compassionate and less judgemental. It’s easy to look at drug addicts and shake your head in pity and sorrow, but I’m just the same. It’s just that my drug of choice is a tray of cookie dough rather than a syringe full of heroin (I’m not sure Pizza Hut sell the latter).

And hopefully, when I’m back to a healthy weight, I can help other people with their addictions - which I wouldn’t have been able to do without 13 years of struggling with my own. I draw the line at helping them wipe their bums though.

I’m teetotal, so at least there’s that. Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash.