It’s weird how our minds remember events and how the memories of past events impact our present lives.  Let me explain this statement.

I can’t look at Oriole Park at Camden Yards without remembering the time I pitched in the bullpen and had Elrod Hendricks catch me.  I can’t take the orange line on the metro without thinking about my ex girlfriend.  I can’t run my marathon training course through my neighborhood without thinking about running it for the first time while training for my first marathon.  I can’t listen to certain songs without remembering the first time I heard the song.  Oh, and of course, I cannot watch episodes of my favorite 90s Disney TV shows without remembering how I would bounce in my hospital bed when my Dad put the tape of that day’s episodes in the VCR.

Memories do not go away.  It’s just weird how it isn’t necessarily the person, the song, the episode that I miss.  It’s the emotion behind it—the memory.  It’s what makes the memory memorable (go figure) that I long for, even 20 years later in some cases.

Now this is my blog, so I guess I am entitled to say anything I want to on here.  Truth be told, I miss my Disney Afternoon TV shows.  I miss pitching in my backyard.  I miss the excitement of running through my community every morning.  I miss my early morning commutes to my old job that ended with continuing on the metro to see my then girlfriend.  And I miss my ex girlfriend, who I was deeply in love with.

I say I miss all these things and people, but the truth is that what I miss is the memory of what I had.  As much as I may long for a specific thing, whether it be an event or a person, what I realize I’m seeking is the emotion that I once felt.

Everything happens for a reason.  I fully believe that, otherwise I would not be sitting here right now.  Correction, best-case scenario I should be sitting here, but sitting would be the best I could ever do.  Sure, I long for the feelings and emotions I once had, and I sure don’t understand people who deny the emotions that develop from any given event in our lives.  The important thing is that I had the experiences.  It’s the memories that are treasured.  As amazing as it may be to have certain people or objects still in my life, they would only matter because of the memories that have been associated.

It’s the memories I hold dear, and even though I may cherish someone for what they gave me, it’s actually the memory of that person and who they were to me that I’m longing for.  So it isn’t that I miss a person or an object, it’s how they impacted me that I miss.  I guess that’s why, even though I don’t always feel like I want to move on, why I know I can and should move on.  As great as things would have been if they stayed the same and the emotions associated were able to progress, the most important thing is to find those emotions again.

I love and appreciate everything and everyone who has given me a memory in my life.  It’s those memories that show me what is important in my life and what I need in it to survive and be happy.  So as much as I have loved in my life thus far, at least I know the emotions I need to discover anew.  There’s no reason joy can’t return to anyone’s life.  It’s just a matter of rediscovering the emotion somewhere else instead of harping on what you had in the past.  Memories will always exist, but they can’t be recreated in the present.  Each of us owes it to ourselves to remember those emotions and rediscover them in the present life we see in front of us.

This is a difficult undertaking.  Think about all the things you do with your right hand as you drive.  You shift gears, you maneuver between your gas and brake pedals, you turn using both your right and left hands…and most importantly, you have to control the radio stations and manage the ipod traveling playlists!  (Kidding, Mom…)

So, considering how the nerve damage is streaming across the entire right side of my body, driving would naturally be a bit difficult.  It’s even more difficult when you understand how the nerve damage impacts the right side of my body.

My nerves get over-stimulated.  The nerves themselved are dulled, so when events and stimuli occur my nerves over-react due to the dullness of my nerves.  I can’t adjust subtly because I don’t have the fine motor skills to adjust between extremes.  I only react from one extreme to the other when responding to rapid movements or stimuli.

Can you see how this causes an issue while driving?  Basically, I put pressure on the gas pedal and as soon as the car starts to go forward, the acceleration over-stimulates my nerves, resulting in me stepping down on the gas pedal full throttle.  …Yeah, not safe.

That’s what is so cool about how my adaptive equipment is set up.  I have a left-foot accelerator that connects to the actual gas pedal and extends over so that I can do the gas and brake with my left foot, a plate sitting just inside my steering wheel with toggle switches for my signals/horn/dimmer/wipers so that I don’t have to take my left hand off the wheel, and a spinner knob that connects inside that plate so that I have the ability to turn the wheel one-handed.

As much and as fully as I have overcome my disability, no strength can repair permanent nerve damage.  Still though, I can find a way to drive and maintain a fully-abled lifestyle.  There’s no such thing as a disability, only adapting.  Each of us has to adapt to a situation to best conform to being fully able to perform a task.  That’s all I have been doing with driving.  Each day is another step closer to getting my license and another step I’m able to take as a fully-abled individual.

As many times as I hear people mimicking the over-extended and ever-recognizable response of “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!” whenever a soccer goal is scored, I have never actually seen a soccer goal happen live.

I have recognized a huge build up of Cup fever since the event started.  That may be due to the vast mixture of nationalities in DC, but still a lot of people have been into it.  My reason for watching the games was not due to my interest in soccer or the event, but that I was adamant to finally see a darn goal scored.

I watched a good number of the group games, made sure to record the USA games and have seen the post-group games thus far.  I am happy to say that I have FINALLY seen a goal live.  In fact, I have seen MULTIPLE goals scored.  And on top of seeing multiple goals scored, I have seen multiple goals scored that were not counted (USA twice, England in their elimination game and one or two others).

Yes, I have learned along the way that USA cannot beat Ghana, England’s goalie needs new gloves and to remember to position himself in front of the ball at all times, vuvuzelas are easy to tune out when you played sports your whole life and that the referees may perhaps have some biases towards teams, but none of that really matters to me.  All I really care about is that some team will win the thing and everyone will be happy for that team and find multiple reasons to revere them and justify why they won.  Everyone will forget the politics and the missed calls.  However, the best part is that for some team to win the World Cup means they will have to score ANOTHER GOAL!!!  (However, with my luck, I will sit down to watch the entire final and it will end in a 0-0 tie and I will have to wait over two hours to watch a ball kicked back and forth to see a goal happen in a 5-man shootout, which is cool but still isn’t the same as actually seeing a regulation goal happen in soccer.  …And it’s so mucah cooler when you actually know the goal is going to happen before it gets kicked.  Man, I have seen a bit =) )

I decided a couple months ago that I was going to visit a few of the brain surgery groups I had joined on Facebook and was amazed at all the new members who had joined since the last time I had looked at the group pages.  In a way I was excited to see all these new members, but then again it’s tough to see all these new people dealing with the, often detrimental, battle of surgery and its many repercussions.

Making all these new friends, I got the idea that we all needed to get together and meet up, and I mean actually meet.  It was kind of a last minute, spur of the moment idea, but it needed to happen.

I got this idea about a month ago and wanted to set the date as far ahead as I could to give people time to make plans.  I recognized that a lot of my new friends are parents, so I chose to set the date during the first week in August so that we could meet up before all the kids head back to school.  Also, recognizing how hot this country gets in August, I wanted to choose a location that wouldn’t have much humidity…and if it could be a place I have always wanted to visit, all the better!

So here’s the deal: From Thursday, August 5^th through Sunday August 8^th there will be the inaugural Brain Surgery Survivors Retreat in Colorado Springs, Colorado!

I will be booking the cabins early in the week and I really cannot wait to have a long weekend to just relax and FINALLY get to meet and know some of these amazing friends I have made across the last 3 years.  This will definitely be an amazing event that I know will become a yearly get together.  It feels so great sparking the whole thing, too =)