A lot of things are starting to come together, leaving me very hopeful for getting a lot finalized for this month.  Job security looks imminent, I have my vacations worked out and my social life is expanding.  To put it short, life is good!  Oh yeah, and I nailed my parallel parking and backing into a space manuevers for the past two days so I will be getting my driver's license very soon!

I still have a lot left to do, but what is left to do are things I am choosing to do.  The way I see it, the worst case scenario of choosing to do something is the same scenario as if I bypassed doing it altogether.  I can only gain by doing more things, and everything in my life right now is making me happy.  Sweet deal, huh?

Driving has taken up much of my summer, and that has been my most important goal to reach this summer considering the expanded indepedence I will get by having my license.  While getting to New York for my book was put on hold, now I feel so much less stressed about trying to sell my book because of the headway I am making elsewhere.

The last thing I want is to be stressed over the one thing I have been working hardest on for the last two years.  I have been so confident in what I am doing that I don't want to fall flat on my face because I was rushing to finish the plan I created.

Things are starting to calm down and I have new people in my life who are making me realize the importance of moving forward.  A lot has been happening over the last month or so and I have a feeling there are going to be some very fun updates across the next month or so.

I dread the first of the month.  The first of the month is when I force myself to increase weight on every machine that I do in the gym.

By the end of each month, I have strengthened my body to the point that I am lifting my sets with proper form and am able to do each rep within the set with a smooth, controlled motion.  This is exactly what you aim for when you lift, but that is not going to do me any good to get stronger.

The fact that I am lifting properly at the end of each month is great, but lifting properly means that my right side can handle the resistance I am placing on it.  If my right side can handle the weight, that means that my left side, which is dominantly stronger, is probably not being challenged to its full potential.  That's where the increasing weight on the first of the month cycle began.

I'm able to lift the weight just fine on the first of the month.  It definitely gets my body tired because of the additional force I have to exert, but it's just a matter of how pretty my sets look.  Each day my right side is getting acclimated to the added resistance.  It takes a longer time period for my right side, with its nerve damage, to be able to react to lifting a heavier weight.  In fact, I have seen that it takes about 3 weeks for my right side to strengthen to the point that I can lift properly.

The only way for me to build my right side to lift heavier weight is to overload what my right side has proven that it can do.  Where I end each month is the maximum weight my body has ever lifted, and is the maximum resistance my disabled side has known.  It had to build up to be able to handle that weight properly.  Lifting that weight repeatedly across the month is how I get my body to the point that it can properly handle the increased load, and that is exactly why I need to increase the resistance again next month.

If I don't do this my body will plateau, and I can't have that.  I have pushed myself too far to overpower my disability to let my right side plateau.  So I struggle for a week or two to challenge my body in order to generate new muscle despite nerve damage and permanent disabilities across my right side.  By the end of the month, I find myself exactly where I was last week.

When I increase weight, my left side can handle the added weight because my left side has always compensated for my right.  I'm simply letting my left side work itself fully, and for the first week or two my right side simply compensates for what my right side is teaching itself to handle.  It's not the ideal learning situation, but it's my learning situation.  I have always taught myself to adapt, so I adapt for the first week or two and then let my right side carry itself on for the rest of the month until the first of the next month comes and we repeat the cycle.

Each day I get stronger and, at this time right now, my right side is as strong as my left side was sometime in the past.  Each day I am eliminating my disability.  People don't see my disability anymore and it is because of my dedication to strengthening my body in a way that I never let my body plateau that has allowed me to constantly push my disability out of my body.  I refuse to let it stagnate, which is exactly why I force myself to, in a sense, destabilize my right side in order to force it to get stronger and eliminate any effects my disability once had.

My disability will always be.  It's permanent nerve damage.  But as long as I continue growing and strengthening my right side and my entire body, then all that truly matters is that I am pushing myself beyond a limit I ever imagined possible.  That's my goal for this month and every month following.