On January 1, 2018 Redding resident Julian Borba made a New Year’s resolution to lose fifty pounds and climb Mt. Lassen. Over the recent 4th of July holiday Borba accomplished his goal. “I’ve never regretted anything more in my life,” he told Redding Jefferson. “I gave up the couch for the trail and all I want to do is go back.”
According to Borba, viewing Shasta County from above only made it harder to see his television.
Citing an over-abundance of energy and a lack of night sweats among the myriad of other things he’s lost, Borba is determined sit on his couch eating potato chips straight from the bag until he’s reached his target weight. “You know, I climb the stairs without so much as a single huff and puff. I miss that feeling of dizzy nausea from a brief walk to the mailbox and back.”
Since beginning this journey he has not once awoken himself with sleep apnea and chest pounding heartburn, nor has he woken with a hangover of biblical proportions. “I used to wake up in profound agony immediately questioning my life choices. Without self-induced physical pain such to make me regret my every waking decision how will I ever be introspective or shame myself with every glance in a mirror?” Borba shook his head a single tear in his eye. “I have so much self-worth now. It’s awful.”
Worse yet, Borba’s adult onset diabetes has gone into remission. “What am I gonna do with all this insulin? I can’t just dump it out!” Since a shrinking of stomach tissue has led to a smaller appetite incidents of hunger-induced temper tantrums are fewer and his relationships are improving. “People actually want to be around me now! Imagine that: people! They’re the worst.”
When asked what it was like to finally crest the peak of Mt. Lassen he just shook his head. “Looking down on the majesty of God’s creation just made me think about how tiny my problems are. I like my problems. I like them big and impossible to overcome. Now I just have this sense that if I can climb Mt. Lassen, I can do anything. I don’t want to do anything. I can’t wallow in a perpetual spiral of misery if my problems can actually be overcome.”
In the end, Borba likened his journey to Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz. “I went to the Oz of being healthy and fit, and now I realize my place was right back at Kansas fat where I started. I can now just be miserable and not have to do anything about it.”