BREAKING STRIDE, LOSING MOMENTUM, PICKING IT UP

Breaking stride matters when you’re the lead horse in a harness race.

Do that and you’re disqualified.

What happens when you breakdown in your regular day to day life?

Who notices that?

You. Or you should, since everyone else does.

I knew I’d broken stride when I looked at dirty glass on the countertop with chalky lip prints on the edge.

It was the sort of cup you find in old people’s houses, old people who figure ‘why wash it if it’s only me?’

Who left that out? Me. And I didn’t live alone.

I was officially old and had the trophy to prove it.

Except I wasn’t permanently old. I was just dipping a toe into the aging pool during cancer treatment.

The glass was milky and gooey because my diet was a little restricted due to neck radiation.

The radiation didn’t hurt at all, just the results.

My thought was if that shit hurt so much as the accumulative effect took hold, it had to be killing cancer at a painful rate.

And it was.

I eventually snapped out of it, regained my stride, and carried on.

In the world of hopes and dreams, I continued.

I left the world of death and despair, imminent death and despair.

Instead of dwelling on the pathology, I returned to my path.

The big part of that was getting my mind right and trusting my neck to swallow without feeling like it’s on fire.

My takeaway from the entire ordeal was how important the neck is in the entire realm of things.

You need a good neck to eat, to breathe, for blood flow to your brain.

An Ear, Nose, and Throat guy, an ENT, has the lowdown on the details, but those are the biggies.

Your neck knows how to deliver food to your stomach, and how to deliver air to your lungs, and sometimes your stomach. (Burp)

 

Riding The Wind

The greatest benefit of feeling like death warmed over comes with recovery.

First comes the big questions: Will I recover?

If anyone ever asks you that question, the proper answer is, “Yes.”

I’ve seen it go both ways.

My father in-law was in a steep death spiral and pulled out; my mother in-law got the bad news: she had a stroke that was deemed ‘not survivable.’

For my part, I didn’t ask the survivable question. It felt too dramatic.

Chemo, radiation, oh my. Then the climb back to the world of the living.

I remember the first walk around the block with my wife. It felt like a dog walk and I was the dog.

My first time back to the gym I haunted for years made me feel like a ghost.

I picked up the pace, ignored the urge to lay down, and set an example.

An example for who? For me so I can reflect and continue learning.

Do I rate other’s recovery from dire circumstances based on my own recovery?

No, not publicly, but I secretly urge strangers to get a grip and hold on tight.

 

Winning The Race

We don’t always get the ride we want; neither does the horse, but the key is doing the best you can with what you’ve got.

No one has ever done ____?

Someone will be the first.

No one has ever gone ____?

Someone will be the first.

No one has ever been ____?

Someone will be just that.

Your mission, should you choose it, is to do good stuff, go where you need to be, then be the force of all that is good and decent where such virtues are lacking.

That’s a big ask for a big job. However, we live in a world where just such things can happen.

You may not hear about it, and if you try doing the good work, you may not feel any different.

But, mark my words, making a good difference is always preferable.

No one remembers normal behavior because it’s expected; but we remember the freaks.

So, if your goal is being remembered, be a good freak.