It was a late night seven weeks ago, and I was sitting in a small room adjacent to the birthing suite at the home of the local midwife while my sister was preparing to give birth to yet another baby girl, Aubri Jean.  For reasons I’ll never quite understand, she had decided to go with "natural" childbirth this time around, a term which quickly started to feel like the ultimate oxymoron as the night wore on.  Because, I tell you what, there was nothing remotely natural about the noises emanating from the other side of the thin wall I found myself staring at in wide-eyed horror.  Why do we do this to people? I couldn’t help but wonder.

You see for me, the act of childbirth has always seemed like something straight off the sci-fi channel or maybe an internal CIA interrogation memo.  I’m sorry, but spending equal parts of nine months puking your brains out and having your insides used as a punching bag until one day, this slimy little extraterrestrial-looking thing — that could almost pass as human, if only it’s face wasn’t so scrunched up — manages to claw its way out with very little regard for the damage it does to your body sounds a lot less like a "miracle" and more like something Dick Cheney should be justifying on Meet the Press each Sunday.  And yet, millions upon millions of women all over the world do it every year like it’s no big deal, making the voodoo we call motherhood seem effortless even though it’s anything but. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in a life of constantly putting someone else’s personal comforts/needs/dreams/hunger/problems ahead of your own — day in, and day out — with no real expectation of even a simple "Thanks, Mom."  It’s being woken up at 4 a.m. to clean up some ungodly mix of bodily fluids that couldn’t possibly have come from the tiny person staring weakly back at you, dropping everything at work to race across town to hand-deliver a third permission slip for The Centipede Exhibit at the Museum because someone misplaced the last two and the bus leaves in 15 minutes, and long nights digging relentlessly through not one, but all three dumpsters behind the local pizza place with archaeologist-like scrutiny, in desperate search of the holy grail known simply as "The Retainer" — sometimes all in the span of one day.  For some, it’s five years without a full night’s rest because you’re 30-year-old baby boy needs his eyebrow scratched in the middle of the night.  No wait, his nose.  Now his head.  Up a little.  Over a little.  Back just a hair.  Down some.  Right there.  A little more.  That’s good.  Oh wait, the eyebrow again. 

So, to all the amazing moms that I know personally, and the dozen or so (maybe) out there who still manage to drop by my lowly corner of the interwebs here from time to time, I just want to wish you the very happiest of Mother’s Day filled with whatever you desire — be it an all day spa sesh or just 15 minutes to sit down and catch your breath.  And to Mad Dog, whose strength, love, patience and compassion are downright legendary in the eyes of all those lucky enough to know her, I just want to say thanks for doing all that you do every day to make this life just a little bit easier for me to bear.  If I could somehow find a way to obtain and wrap a thousand or so hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep, that would be my gift to you.  Happy Mother’s Day, Mom… I love you.

Now, for the rest of us, yeah, give Mom a big hug because today is her day.  But then do it once more, a) just because you can but, more importantly, b) because she actually grew your funky, alien-looking ass inside her body for nine months, and she did it with relatively little complaint.  I’ll say it again:   Inside. Her. BODY!!!  Take a minute and let that sink in… and give her one more hug.  It’s the least you can do.
]]> http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/word-to-your-mother/feed/ 18 smalls149 http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/stealing-someone-elses-words/ http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/stealing-someone-elses-words/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:09:54 +0000 smalls149 http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/stealing-someone-elses-words Continue reading →]]> Hey, I’ve said before that I’m not above it.  I have spent the last couple days (without sleep) trying to find the right words to commemorate today.  I never would have thought they would show up secondhand in an e-mail my mom sent out to friends and loved ones this evening.  Enjoy…

 
Hi There,

I wanted to take some time to thank each of you for all you have done these last 5 years. (Hard to believe!) Whether in person or from afar you have helped all of us go through this journey a little easier.  We have come a long way since that day, we all remember where we were when we heard the news.

We have learned so much and Kenny is doing well – considering all that he has been through. We continue to hope for progress in spinal cord research and hope that someday it will help him in some way.  Today I find my emotions a little less in check, I remember the physcial guy he was, so proud of the guy he is – I will be conscious more today of those "things he misses most". I will rub his sister’s belly (she is due in 4 weeks) and hug Ali and Abi just a little longer – for him.

I know each one of us has come through this thinking a little differently about our lives, we all look at the disabled just a little different and not one of us can pass by a wheelchair without thinking about "what" put this person in that chair.

We will forever be greatful and truly appreciate you all, please continue sending good thoughts our way. We do lean on your shoulders from time to time. You hold us up when we need a little help. We are so fortunate to have wonderful people around us.

With much love,

Jeanne, Skip and Kenny

… yeah, you can say it.  My mom rocks.
]]> http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/stealing-someone-elses-words/feed/ 65 smalls149 http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/reason-to-believe/ http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/reason-to-believe/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:53:19 +0000 smalls149 http://smalls149.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/reason-to-believe Continue reading →]]>

I’ve been trying hard to wrap my head around what happened this past week, so please excuse my upcoming long-windedness.

George Carlin once said that, "inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist."  Well, after spending the near entirety of my adult life in The Bush Era, governed by the politics of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, it should come as no surprise that I have viewed government, and our system as a whole, with a cynical pair of LASIK-corrected eyes.  But after witnessing what went down in our nation’s capital on Tuesday, it’s hard not to be slightly buzzed on a cocktail of pride and optimism over what took place.

This election was a statement.  It was the long-overdue acknowledgment, and rejection, of the hypocrisy in our actions not matching up to the rhetoric this country was founded on (hmm… maybe now the words declared by our forefathers that "all men are created equal" can actually become the Mad Lib they are supposed to be, only this time without the preceding adjective blanks for race, gender, religion and – hopefully much sooner than later – sexual preference already filled in like when they were first put on paper).  It also rejuvenates the promise of The American Dream® in the eyes of the world, and serves as a reminder that America isn’t just a series of fast food chains and department stores, plagued by an ethnocentric anti-intellectualism that feeds on gluttonous overconsumption and celebrity obsession.  No, within these borders you’ll find that, for those willing to put in the effort, this is the land of unlimited possibilities.  And can we please put to rest the absurd notion that the further down the family tree our immigrant ancestors reside, the more American we somehow are?  Because, lest we forget, most of us wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for someone X-amount of generations ago buying into the idea that the grass was greenest in the US of A.

And if you just look at a few of the steps the president has taken in his first week alone, you’ll see the potential to do more for our homeland security than anything the last administration put into place.  Initiating the shutdown of Gitmo can finally put an end to the do-we-or-don’t-we torture argument for good (because let’s face it, citing a lack of terrorist attacks since 9/11 as justification for the suspension of basic human civil liberties is like saying that, since I haven’t broken any bones in the last five years, my paralysis has been worth it: it hasn’t kept us safe, just further cultivated the hatred of our enemies).  And making his first calls as Commander in Chief to the various leaders involved in and around the current conflict in Israel instead of wasting time schmoozing a few allies sends a clear message that our foreign relations will once again be rooted in diplomacy instead of unwavering ultimatums.

And I realize that the man has been lauded by the left (and mocked by the right) as the second coming of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Dr. King, Gandhi, Ted Williams, Walter Payton, sliced bread and Jesus himself all rolled into one, but I’m not quite that naïve nor that arrogant.  I’ll tell you what I do see, though; an intelligent, articulate and pragmatic leader with a deep sense of history and a clear picture of the future he wants to mold.  He’s humble enough to know that he can’t solve all these problems by himself, wise enough to surround himself with some of the strongest minds available to him and has the backbone to make the right decisions when it comes down to it.  Now, I’m not suggesting we’ve entered some sort of post-partisan utopian age, but the ability to be ambitious politically and still remain inclusive of all perspectives is crucial given the challenges we face.  2008 wrapped up in hellish fashion with the loss of 2.6 million jobs, the national debt rocketing past $10 trillion and our military entrenched in two wars with no real consensus on how to end one while simultaneously ramping up the other.  All in all, I guess it’s pretty safe to say that collectively we are in some pretty deep shit.

And the last year or so hasn’t exactly been all puppy dogs and pixie dust for me personally either.  I’ve spent the majority of the last 10 months relegated to bedrest from a pressure sore I could have easily prevented.  So much time in the dungeon hasn’t done much good for the psyche, trust me.  Then in a freak accident at a monster truck show a little more than a week ago, a large piece of metal debris shot into the stands, tragically killing a six-year-old boy, and striking a close family friend square in the face, shattering the majority of his jaw.  Actually, "close friend" is a severe understatement, since he is the closest thing to a big brother I will ever have.  He was one of my first wrestling coaches and the person who fed me my first meal in the ICU after my accident.  So seeing one of my heroes brought to his knees like this has been a struggle to say the least.  The inability to help is maddening.  And though his oxycodone-hazed thumbs up gave me immense hope that he will be okay, I still left the hospital last Monday with a great amount of anger towards the world in general.  But as I watched the hundreds of thousands of people converge on the capital the next morning, I could feel my boiling blood slowly begin to cool.

It was strange, because the larger the crowd became, all I kept picturing was that scene from Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks and Robin Wright Penn’s characters reunite in the Reflecting Pool amidst the sea of war protesters.  And that led my tangent-prone mind to wander to the 60s in general; an era I’ve always been curious about because of the almost palpable sense of social and political activism that seemed apparent at the time.  Or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from things I’ve read, seen on the History Channel, etc..  And that simple fact – that the only personal experiences I could relate to the moment have come from the wistful words of dead authors, the grainy images of documentaries and the special effects of blockbuster films – helped to reinforce just how rare and monumental the day actually was.  And that really got me thinking.

This could be our moment; that once-in-a-generation opportunity to leave an indelible mark on the course of history.  It’s a chance to usher in a new era where we take the power back from the megacorporations that have been distracting us from what is really important with Cialas commercials and iPhone apps or whatever else.  It’s going to take our own brand of vigilant activism similar to those of generations past, where we decide that our idealism will not be written off by the cynicism of others as a weakness or a blind faith, but recognized and respected as a measured optimism tempered with the resolve that we can do better; we must do better if we’re going to weather the storms still gathering on the horizon.  But in order to do better, we first have to recognize that this change won’t begin on Wall Street or in the halls of our capital buildings.  It has to start in our living rooms and backyards and spread from there. 

Everyone of us could make a better effort to conserve energy, manage our finances and educate our children as well as ourselves.  I mean, how can we rightfully expect our elected officials to be held accountable if we aren’t individually attempting to walk the walk first?  That being said, the former just might be a little easier this time around given this president is breaking the stranglehold the last administration had on the Freedom of Information Act.  We can no longer avoid the path of the road less traveled for fear of the unknown, paralyzed by threats from the outside world and wallowing in self-pity over our various plights. 

Because make no mistake, Barack Obama is not some sort of savior, and he’s not going to pull us out of this ditch with the snap of a finger.  But who knows, perhaps with a little help, he could one day be looked back on as the catalyst that helped motivate a generation to reengage in actively shaping the future of those that followed.  Or maybe he won’t.  Maybe in four years I’ll view this post as my very own Jerry Maguire moment.  Either way, I think it is a lot less up to him than it is up to us, so I’m going to try to work a little harder than I did yesterday.

The truth is, my friend’s face will heal.  My ass will heal.  This country will heal.  Will any of it be easy?  Hell no, and it will probably get worse before it gets better.  But we are a resilient bunch (with my buddy pretty much topping the list) who can overcome this and anything else that gets thrown our way if we can somehow keep a white-knuckled grip on hope.  It has been a crazy week, a tough few months and an arduous eight years.  But after seeing what a little "community organizing" did to this country last week, I can finally say I have reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, this year will be better than the last. 

Now…… who’s coming with me?

But then last weekend I started reading a book called America: Our Next Chapter by Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and, I have to say, it really struck a chord.  On page 18, I stumbled upon this tasty little nugget of wisdom: "For Americans to believe once again in our political system — and by believe in, I mean participate in it with their votes and their active involvement — they have to believe their elected leaders."  Shocking concept, no?  Now, I’ve written briefly on my political history, or lack thereof, once before, but perhaps I should expand a little.

A decade ago I was an 18-year-old high school kid whose closest thing to a political thought was either, "Cool, I can buy scratch tickets!" or maybe a joke about what the definition of is… um, was.  I justified my political apathy with standard slacker rhetoric; "I don’t want to throw off the system with my uneducated vote."  Flash forward five years, and my teenage ambivalence had long since given way to a feeling of complete disenchantment with the system as a whole after having watched a man who lost the public vote move into the White House a few years earlier.  I remember sitting in the student union building at school, watching CNN’s tickertape coverage of bombings in Iraq, silently thinking to myself, I thought Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. 

Another five years later, and here I am: a 28-year-old in a wheelchair with a president I voted against whose administration we now know used 935 false statements to convince the American public to send their sons and daughters to bravely give their lives in a war that should never have been waged.  Let me see if I have this right: we hold impeachment hearings regarding the happenings in Old Billy Boy’s pants, but then 10 years later a president falsely leads us to war and we shrug it off, allowing him to simply mail-in what remains of a second term worse than I did my last quarter of college??  (Seriously, dude… I tried harder in springboard diving class.)  WTF??  Shouldn’t someone be doing something about this??

Like who, the media?  Fifty-some-odd channels of "political commentary" that has devolved into a brand of partisan hackery that is more concerned with the Kevin Bacon Factor of our presidential candidates than their stance on the environment, especially if someone’s dog walker’s cousin was caught with socialist reading material in high school?  Right.  All they’ve managed to accomplish lately is allowing words like dishonesty and accountability to be replaced with more spin-friendly terms like "mis-spoke", "misremember" and "truthiness."  Sorry Stephanopoulos & Co., but who wears how big of a flag symbol for how long is not exactly one of the issues my vote hinges upon.  Oh wait, did another poll come out??
 
Fact is, if we can’t rely on the media to keep our politicians honest, the responsibility falls squarely at our feet, my friends.  And yes, it may have taken 10 years to fully get my act together, but this time I’m not willing to sit idly by and let the pattern of mistrust that has infested the Oval Office continue any longer.  And that’s precisely why my vote this year will not be going to someone so willing to blatantly and repeatedly lie about her foreign-policy experiences to secure a nomination she doesn’t seem to even have a true mathematical chance of winning outright except for what would only be seen as the backrooming of superdelegate votes that will do nothing but disenfranchise enough of the party to lose her the general election anyway. 

No, I’ll be casting my vote for a candidate (gasp!) I can actually believe in.  A candidate whose biggest criticism seems to be that he lacks the type of lengthy, hypocrisy-laden voting resume that most politicians spend the majority of their campaigns selectively claiming based on which vote they are trying to win at that specific moment.  I want my next president to be the man with the vision, tenacity and passion that not only have the ability to re-inspire the disillusioned people like I once was to get back involved in the future of their country, but the potential to unite the public in such a way that will start making the kind of changes that could make me honestly utter the words, "I am PROUD to be an American" for the very first time in the 10 years I’ve been eligible to vote.  This November I’m voting for change.  I’m voting for hope.  I’m voting for Obama, and I hope you do too.

"This is our moment.  This is our chance.  There is a moment in the life of every generation where that spirit of hopefulness has to come through.  Where we cast aside the fear, and the doubt and the cynicism — the cynicism that so often passes for wisdom but is actually just being afraid to reach for something higher — were we shed that and, arm in arm, we decide we’re going to remake this country; block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, county by county, state by state… THIS is OUR moment.  THIS is OUR time.  And if you stand with me… if you will vote for me, we will not just win the nomination, we will win the general election and you and I together will transform this country, and we will transform the world."  — Barack Obama in Virginia on February 9, after sweeping contests in LA, NE, WA and VI

But as we all know, that night wasn’t the end of my road but a hard left turn into completely foreign territory.  And while this life is one I was neither prepared for nor looking forward to (and to this day have times I don’t want to do anymore), it is one that has led me to many experiences, people and thoughts I may never have come across otherwise.  In less time than it took me to earn my degree, I have gained a greater appreciation for life, both the people I love and those special souls who chose health-care as their career, all the while becoming enlightened to the downfalls of their industry caused by some of my governments nonsensical policies which sometimes cause it to feel a lot closer to health-scare.  I’ve started a blog, told some goofy stories, and met literally thousands and thousands of people from all walks/rolls of life.  And somewhere along the lines I became a writer; about the last thing I would have ever pictured for myself.  I’ve landed an amazing agent, completed my first writing workshop (that went VERY well, for all those wondering), and made countless useful contacts that should come in quite helpful as I try to realize this new dream of someday publishing a book. 

It was right about this time three years ago tonight that my parents were briefly allowed to see me before I was taken to surgery to repair my broken neck.  I looked calmly at my mom and said, "My life is changed forever."  I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t emotional, it was just a fact: life as I knew it was over.  Though I instantly knew the situation was bad, I never could have imagined the truly great things that also lay ahead.

Blink.  Blink.  Blink. The cursor on your monitor flashes at you expectantly, almost impatiently.  Suddenly you are five years old again, and your mom is standing in the doorway with her hands at her hips, tapping her toe like only a late mother can, as you frantically stuff the Lego’s she "told you to start picking up 15 minutes ago," back into the big blue bucket.  You pause for a fraction of a second, doting on one of your creations, and she pulls out the big guns: your full name.  Nothing turns a lollygagging child into an organizational genius better than their own handle, broken down monosyllabicly with terrifying inflection. 

You stare at the blank wordprocessor page on the screen, it’s emptiness overwhelming.  Though it seems like forever ago, you can still remember a time when that white glare was your friend, a blank canvas of limitless potential where your words seemed to come to life as easily as one of Bob Ross’s half-hour masterpieces on The Joy of Painting.  You wrote with reckless abandon, the stories picking up where a certain crash landing forced your body to leave off.  And you scoffed at the term "writer’s block," because something like that would require taking yourself seriously, which just wasn’t your style.  Life was nothing but happy little trees.  But now?  Shit. 

Now you’ve been recognized.  Now you have an audience.  Now you have an agent.  Now you’re a writer, and your twisted little brain has somehow taken all this encouragement and praise and transformed it into suffocating pressure that is choking off that link between your voice and this empty page.  The overactive mind that you once relied on has now become your worst enemy, overanalyzing every fucking word that comes out of your mouth.  Instead of pouring out your thoughts all at once, you edit as you go, trying so hard to craft every sentence so perfectly that you just wind up frustrated after one paragraph and ultimately give up.

You’ve been avoiding your site altogether lately because the mere thought of writing nearly induces a full-blown anxiety attack.  Every time you do happen to open the page, you are overcome with confusion, self-doubt and, of all things, fear.  You can’t help the feeling that there’s a book locked somewhere deep inside of you that you will never be able to get it out, and you’re going to wake up 20 years from now only to realize you’ve missed out on a huge opportunity and wasted an even bigger talent.  You read your old stuff, and think to yourself, what happened to that guy?

So when your agent e-mailed you a while back about a 12-week online memoir writing workshop starting next Wednesday, you were initially intrigued.  But that feeling proved fleeting as you began reading the course syllabus: "By the end of class, students can expect to have: an outline, 50 pages of a memoir and the knowledge they need to approach literary agents and/or publishing houses."  Yeah right.  You’re having enough trouble getting a five paragraph blog out once a month, what makes you think you’ll suddenly spit out 50 pages or so in three?  Fortunately, your agent has a lot more faith in your writing than you do. 

She tells you this is a chance to recapture the voice you miss so much.  Put your blog on hold for a while, get rid of all that pressure and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a way back to you.  Could it wind up being a complete waste of three months and six hundred bucks; or the very answer you’ve been looking for?  You’ll never know until you try, right?  You realize she has a point (and that she rocks), and sign-up for the class.

For the majority of your life, sports were your art… now, you need to start treating your art as a sport.  If you can figure out a way to push your mind like you pushed your body all those years, maybe one day you’ll look back on all this as just a phase.  You take one last look at the cursor, close your eyes, and start to talk…

After about an hour or so of intense denial about the need to go to the ER, I finally gave in, and was whisked away in one of the local fire department’s red and white chariots, complete with sirens and flashing lights.  Go big or go home, yeah?  Another few hours of blank stares from ER doctors, and I was admitted with what was deemed just a really bad bladder infection, with no real explanation, or concern for that matter, as to why I was shaking like an epileptic in the throes of a grand mall.  Solution?  Bring on the drugs, baby. We finally discovered the culprit after a couple days, a negative CT scan of my kidneys and more than my share of early-morning (see: butt-crack of dawn) blood tests.  It turned out to be a fairly mean case of cellulitis on my left thigh from my knee all the way up past my hip.  New, much more advanced solution?  Some battery acid-like antibiotics, more than a week in "the joint" and, you guessed it, even more drugs.  Hooray for me.  Considering the loopy-as-hell state I was in, it’s a miracle I remember Jim’s visit at all.

Big Jim was one of my physical therapists in rehab after I got hurt.  On the outside, he’s one intimidating guy, complete with a shaved head, some burly tattoos and more muscle than most would consider humanly possible.  The tough exterior is completely betrayed, however, by the permanent smile he wears, and the unwavering positive attitude he brings to the hospital each day.  We had an instant bond through wrestling, because his boy Zack can only be described as an absolute stud in the sport.  Well, the word "phenom" also comes to mind… so does "beast."  Anyways… By the time this kid reaches middle school, he will probably have wrestled in, and won, more matches and major tournament titles than I did in my entire 12 year career.  I have an autographed T-shirt… and you think I’m kidding.  I’ve followed the boy’s success solely through his proud father’s stories, and I could tell by the smile on his face that morning that he had a yet another doozy for me.  I’m just glad he showed up in between hallucinations, or else this story would be about purple trolls wrestling in sequined jumpsuits or something.

A deep, booming voice teamed with animated deliveries, Jim’s wrestling tales are never lacking in the entertainment department.  This particular story came from one of the many wrestling camps the big man and his beast of a child attended over the summer.  While watching a coach show a high-percentage scoring maneuver during the technique portion of the day, Jim could have sworn he recognized the name of the move, but could not place where from.  As the session came to a close, the man sat all the kids down and told them that the technique they had just learned was named after a rather successful wrestler he knew who used it to win a lot of big matches throughout both high school and college.  This man, who was paralyzed in a tragic skiing accident, always had a great work ethic and an even better attitude.  The name of the move was of course… "the Salvini."

Jim could not recall the man’s name as he told me the story that day, but he didn’t have to because he’s a friend of mine.  His name is Randy Connelly, and he was the head wrestling coach at my old high school when I was away at college.  The epitome of the word "coach," Randy’s competitive spirit is overshadowed only by his passion for his sport, which tends to spread like wildfire throughout his teams.  Every time I came home on a holiday break, he eagerly turned practices (sometimes full weeks) over to me with the hopes that what I had learned from competing at a higher level would be passed on to his kids.  I can still remember his enthusiasm the day I first showed "the Salvini" to his guys during a practice over the Thanksgiving break.

And so it is, I have officially made my mark on the sport that helped make me who I am today.  Now, I have always been a firm believer that when we finally do leave this world, each of us will be remembered based upon a few key moments in our lives.  Because of this, I always tried (keyword: tried) to carry myself accordingly.  The way I saw it, no matter where you are, or what you’re doing, you never truly know who might be watching and, especially when it comes to younger people, possibly looking up to you.  Did the move get its name because I created it?  Sorry, I didn’t.  Because I was the best wrestler ever, perhaps?  Sadly, I wasn’t.  Or is it more likely that kids halfway across the state are learning "the Salvini" not because of what I did, but because of who I was?

How will you make your mark?  How do you want to be remembered?