Everything is Alright..

Everything is Alight.  Did you hear the sound of the world coming to an end a few nights ago?  It was the kind of loud that was covered in an utter silence and I swear there was a silent scream before the living room I sat in erupted.  Baba and I shifted towards the tv as he kissed his girl, Gina’s chicken legs did some kind of dance and then did that dance again on the ottoman…  I put my hand on my wife’s knee and held back tears because I knew I was seeing something special.  I was seeing something from a kid born in NE Philadelphia had always hoped to see and was already denied from seeing it twice in his lifetime. Everyone ran outside and cheered and I sat there for a few more minutes motionless and making sure that they weren’t going to take it away from the city somehow.  Chaos.  Family. Friends. I’ll never forget where I was and who I was with when the Philadelphia Eagles did what the world said would never happen, they won the fucking Super Bowl. Everything is alright.

I called my brother.  I called my dad who was protesting the season because he worked hard to become an American citizen and hate the whole taking a knee thing but that’s a whole other story for another day. I texted my sister and cousin Frankie and went home to check on my doggie because fireworks were exploding all over the city. We got home and I got yelled at because I wasn’t paying attention to “This Is Us” and I couldn’t focus on anything but all the happiness that engulfed my phone, laptop and area.  Two days later I still feel the same writing this.  People are happy.  People hugging and kissing each other all over and everything is alright.  I got my hat.  World Fucking Champs.  Everything is alright.

You don’t have to know much about football to know that our star quarterback gets hurt going into the last few games of the season and the world who already said that the Eagles would be 1 and done in the playoffs has to sit there and watch out back-up quarterback and a team full of backups (we have a probowl lineup of guys hurt) win.  Underdogs.  Rocky.  Us against the world.  It will make a great NFL Film someday.  The boys did it. A special group of men not because they are champs but because they never took credit of any kind on their own….  They instantly deflected to their families, team mates, coach, city, God. They are a unified team.  You can say what you want about the classless city and the shithole we live in but this team has class.  I am happy.  My family is happy. Everything is alright.

Well that said how do you celebrate your birthday with all this happiness and craziness going on in the city you were born into to?  You go to the parade!  You go an watch these guys hoist that trophy.  You don’t care about the cold.  You have anxiety about the how and where but NEVER the why.  You know why.  I saw it with my own eyes with most of the people that I watched them win the game with and that’s how I celebrated my birthday.  Parade.  Dinner.  Cake at the gym.  (yeah, my coach is crazy but his twin daughters who wanted to sing to me are cute) and lots and lots of refection.  For a moment the world stopped.  The silence took over.  Took a chance. It was too cold to talk.  Everything is alright.

We are six weeks into the new year and guess what the total # is?  49 to go ☺ lol.  Guess what? 6 weeks of eating more and reverse dieting had totally kept me pretty much at the same weight and on Monday I’ll start to try to drop pounds without losing the muscle I’ve packaged on and we’ll work on that scale number.  But it’s the craziest thing to me.  Football games, Super Bowl, My birthday and I’ve completely stayed where Coach Jason wanted me to.  I need to rest my poor heart I think.  But I am ready to change my work outs up, re-introduce cardio into my life (trust me I don’t want to)  and I guess my food intake will change come Monday morning.  I dunno what Coach is changing but we’ll start pulling it down again.  I am ready.  Everything is alright.

I have other stuff to talk about but there is always next year. But let’s think about this for a quick minute.  It’s been 4 years that I’ve been on this journey.  I’ve spent more days in a gym then I’ve spent out.  I guess that’s a good thing.  Thank you for ready.

Everything is alright.

Franco