I am generally a fairly upbeat person. If you see me on the street, odds are I will have a smile and look like I own the place. As I get older I’m having more and more days that I don’t feel like the king of the world. Stuff just hurts. I think everybody deals with that as we age. If you’re out in public very long you will notice that a lot of people haven’t learned how to fake it.

Some mornings I get up and because of cerebral palsy my body just refuses to work. I have a pretty standard routine, of checking email and doing other things that don’t require much from me physically for the first hour of my morning. I do this because it takes that long every day just to figure out what’s working and what’s not. I’ve had several mornings recently that I have gotten out of bed sore, and my hands just didn’t want to work at all. My body doesn’t work well on a good day, but especially when its cold, things get even worse. I go through my hour routine, and my brain says” just take the day off and go back to bed, everything hurts, and it’s not worth it” I never go back to bed.

I want to. I talk about it a lot, but I never actually do. My reason for this? Life is too short. If I go to bed every time I don’t feel like being up, eventually I would be in bed all day. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

So I put a smile on my face, and I force myself to do something productive. Before I know it, the entire day is gone, and I still have three hours of work to do.

To be honest, I didn’t want to write this blog today, but it got done anyway. Why push myself like that you ask? The answer is because I don’t want to allow my body to dictate what I do everyday. I complain more than I should to those close to me(just ask Evie).

She motivates me every day for reasons I won’t go into here. Let’s just say she has struggles of her own, and she’s much tougher than me. Being around someone who won’t even admit they are having a bad day, pushes me not to think about my little aches and pains.

What’s the moral of the story? Your mind is amazing and you can push through lots of bad days, just by telling yourself repeatedly and loudly that everything is going your way, and you will not be stopped.

The matrix is what you make it. What you believe and tell yourself you feel, can actually come true.

Test it for yourself. Neo has nothing on you.

Thanks to Evie floor making me look at least as good as Keanu Reeves

People watch me everywhere I go. I don’t know if they are curious about the chair, or if I am just so good-looking that they can’t help but stare.   I started to notice it in grade school. Nobody said anything really, there was just always someone watching me. As I got older, that changed. I started to notice people whispering and some would even point. Girls talked to me differently than they did the other guys.  Adults while being unsure about me, even scared of me, generally treated me better than they did other kids. At some point I decided if people we’re going to watch me, I would give them something to watch. I learned to become outgoing, and enjoy being the center of attention wherever I am. I’ll never understand why  people don’t just ask what’s on their mind. If you ever see me on the street and have a question please ask it, no matter how stupid you may think it is. I would rather you ask then not. Anyone who knows me, knows I will answer pretty much anything. Nothing is really off-limits

When I was in college, I had a three hour advertising class that I did not enjoy. There was nothing wrong with the class, I just didn’t want to be there most days. The class started at 1 PM just after lunch. One day, I decided to test a theory .

My theory was that I could roll into the class however late I wanted, and no one would say a word, including the professor who was in her first year. For six weeks I took a long lunch and got to class at least a half hour late every time the class met. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t draw attention to myself, I just rolled in, with my drink in hand, and took my seat. The professor never said a single word, never gave me a look, and I got an A for the class. Granted, I did all my work and studied for the tests, but I’m pretty sure anybody else would have been dropped at least a letter grade. I couldn’t have done that with Dr. Leigh she would have thrown me out of the class and told me not to come back.

People like her are people that I respect and don’t want to disappoint, ever. She never saw the chair or saw me as disabled. If she wanted to talk about something, we talked, just like regular people. I very rarely feel like a regular person. Most days I don’t mind it. If I ever get famous I will already be used to the attention. I had a very close friend  I only met once in person.. She was extraordinarily beautiful and she felt like men and other women were constantly judging her for her beauty. We spent two days together. Afterwords she told me on the phone that those two days were extraordinary because for that time, in a long Time She felt invisible. She felt for the first time in a long time that no one was watching her, because every eye was on me. She said in those two days she was more comfortable then she could ever remember being, because she was invisible. Her name was Patricia and you can read about her here

So what’s the moral of the story? Well, people are just people. Disabled, tall short, fat, thin, it doesn’t matter. Be bold and talk to them. you never know what you might find that out. It’s cool being a rock star most days, but just having a conversation with someone is a lot more fun.

A round of applause for another fabulous comic please. Thanks Evie

This post is a day late. I knew I had a great motivational comic in the works and I wanted to wait to post it. When you’re in a wheelchair almost every part of life is different than for a normal person. That’s not a bad thing it just is. I’ve been in this situation as pictured in the comic many times. 9 out of 10 times I’ve gotten to go down that slide with some amazing help from someone else. it is very strange to be independent minded like I am and yet require so much help for things that most people take for granted. The thing about overcoming a challenge is that you can have all the help in the world, but before any of it is useful, you have to be willing to work and do your part. Every challenge I have ever faced I needed someone’s help to overcome it.

I have had people literally carrying me up the ladder of a slide like you see here. This blog is another great example. The writing comes from me but I cannot express to you how much work Evie does on a weekly basis to give me the ability to talk to you. Besides this project she is involved in everything else that I do. Having her with me has changed my life(and I’m not just saying that because I know her mother reads this.) At this point, I don’t start a new project without her, she means that much. If I wasn’t willing to do the work. she wouldn’t want to help nearly as much.

I do get frustrated because I need so much help, I think anyone would, but as a friend of my dad says “Do the best you can with what you got”  I am less afraid now than at any other point in my life to ask for help, but I know I have to be willing to do my part. What challenges do you need to overcome and who can you ask for help? (if you’re a really nice to me I’ll let you borrow Evie but I’ll need her back).

For more on this topic check out The support system