I got all the pictures uploaded from my trip.  I did some web searching yesterday and found a bunch of literary agents to contact.  The rest of this week and my entire weekend will be spent writing my query letter and sending the appropriate packages to each agent.  Now that the Colorado excursion has come, gone and I have recovered, it’s time to get focused and put together everything that I have created over the last year or two.  I’ll keep you updated and, by putting this update here, I’m holding myself accountable to tell you about how many agents I have submitted to by next week.

Update coming next week.  I’ve got about 10 agents on my list.  Looks like a busy, but very happy and satisfying week ahead!

Today is a hard day for me—at least it was last year.  This year has gone better than I expected it to and now I’m wondering if the only reason I have any heartfelt emotions towards the day is due to my cognizance of the date.

Everything happens for a reason, which I say all the time but honestly believe it to be true.  Fate exists, and while on this day I originally thought fate happened for another reason, I still learned an invaluable lesson from it.  We don’t only learn from the choices we make in life, we also learn from the results of those choices and the additional outcomes that happen along the way.  Making the initial choice teaches you about embracing risk and following through, but everything that is imparted on you after that initial choice is made teaches you about who you are, your priorities, desires, goals and life in general.

What I realized today is that I have moved on from something I never expected to move on from.  Perhaps that is reason for my minor despondence today.  Like I said, I’m not upset like I thought I’d be, but there’s still a little something nagging at me.  Maybe this is it and this is why.

Perhaps deciding to move on to Colorado also plays part.  Two years ago I saw a reason for staying here, and now I don’t have anything tying me to here.  I’m absolutely free of any responsibility and can do whatever I want, going wherever I want…and that is a scary feeling as well, even more so than staying put.  Settling isn’t as detrimental as it is comforting.  Our mind finds comfort in what it knows.  For me, Colorado is as foreign as it can be…at least it was until I visited.  I always wanted to visit Colorado, but perhaps I never would have if things turned out the way I initially foresaw.  Instead, I took a nine day roadtrip out to Colorado and fell in love with each part of the state that I saw more than the last.

Who knows if I ever would have visited Colorado otherwise.  It definitely would not have been under the same circumstances that spurred me to go this month.  Fate works in mysterious ways, and while the road can be painful at times, you learn what you can from the experience, find what was missing and keep progressing your life.  I have continued to progress my life and where I am now is far different than I thought I would be even last year.  Today is me recognizing and letting go of the fact that where I am is not a mistake, should be regretted or is a consolation.  I’m here because of everything that I have learned, and everything I have learned is leading me to where I’m supposed to be heading.  Today is me letting go of the notion that I have missed out on something and embracing the realization that I am moving towards what I’m meant to not be missing out on.

This year I have gained my independence fully.  I drove to Colorado and have realized that everything is coming together.  I’ve been letting go of the past, which is a tough lesson for anyone to follow through on.  The freedom and joy in following through is amazing.  Yes, it hurts to emotionally leave “what was” behind, but now I am moving on to where I’m progressing myself to, which I would have only realized fully by learning from the lessons and knowledge imparted by “what was.”  Regret and reminiscent wonder holds you back from progressing.  The personal remorse can cause you to settle more so than any other reason for settling.  From leaving it in the past, and releasing that anchor so to speak, I’m carrying myself forward without any reservation, only desire to pursue what fate has meant for me to experience and learn next.  And it feels great.  It feels…right, as it is meant to feel.

So, the trip out to Colorado was amazing.  I have notes written up and plan on doing a recap through the blog later this week.  Today, however, was my first day back to the gym.  It was only a week off and I was happy to discover that I was still able to lift the same amount of weight as two weeks ago.  I hadn’t lost any strength, but was I ever exhausted from that workout.

I was still able to lift 20 plates on the lat pulldown.  That was my first test to myself.  After that, I went through my cycle lifting the same weight I had lifted 2 weeks ago.  I got through the cycle and definitely felt winded.  After doing a few ab exercises and pull-up/push-up variations, I definitely felt my body overall fatigued.  I still felt strong enough to do my full workout though, but by the time I finished my second cycle it got me to the point that my hair hurt.  It wasn’t that my brain hurt, because I know all my brain surgery survivors will be worried about intra-cranial pressure, but my hair itself actually hurt.

Not only that, my right side was noticeably fatigued.  Twenty two years I have spent progressively strengthening my body in hopes of overcoming my disability and, by simply taking a week off, my nerve damage noticeably comes back.  My reaction time is reduced, I don’t respond with the required force needed to execute my routine as strongly as I want and, even though I can complete the exercise to the degree that I did before leaving on vacation, I can feel the nerve damage with more intensity in my hand (where I feel it strongest to begin with).

One week is all it takes to see adverse effects.  With that type of reversal, exponential amounts of progress could be reversed just by simply being away from my routine for a month.  As much as I would love to drop everything and travel the country or even bum around the world, my ultimate pride is how far I have gotten myself and how far from being “disabled” I have come.

Even with as weak as I felt after my workout this morning, that is still stronger than I felt 5 years ago.  Everyone was blown away with me five years ago and I absolutely love the feeling of pushing even the tiniest bit each day and seeing how far it allows me to progress.  Gaining this freedom is enough motivation to continue pushing.  It’s easy to dream the impossible, but physically experiencing even the smallest amount of “impossibility” is every reason to keep at it.  Once you taste it, you never want to let it slip away because the memory of being unable remains in your mouth like that metallic taste just before a seizure.  You know it’s there and you do everything you can to avoid it.

I’ve recognized the importance of my routine, but at least I know I can still deviate for a week every now and then and still be able to perform to the strength that I have built my right side to withstand.  I may feel the nerve damage a bit more, but that is a onstant battle.  The more I push, the more is pushed out of my body.  As much as I want to just embrace my independence and live life, I can’t just pack up my car and drive away.  The way for me to live the quality of life that I want is to maintain the routine I have built myself to.  By continuing that, I can still have fun, but the fun of freedom is earned through the hard work I put in for hours each and every day.  The reward is feeling the disability leaving my body…and this past week has definitely taught me how much I need to appreciate the grind I put my body through in order to build myself to higher, and now uncharted, platforms.

Sunday and my dad and I are driving home to conclude our 9+ day roadtrip more than halfway across the country and back.  Yes, when we were in Garden of the Gods, we found out that San Francisco is 20 hours away.  …not bad for nine days.  It was on this leg that I realized how frequently McDonald’s had become the bathroom stop for the trip.  We probably stopped at 20 McDonald’s and only ate there 3 times.  We stopped once in Ohio after a couple hours of driving and my dad let me keep on going.  In fact, he let me drive all the way through to Wheeling, West Virginia, or as I like to put it drive to the land where Sheetz comes back into existence (also where breakfast sandwiches are  made 24/7)!

We stopped and got food.  I got a pretty good cheesesteak and some cookies and other snacks for the road.  The rest of the way was a pretty straight and easy drive, other than the fact that we were naturally tired from driving what turned out to be 3805.2 miles in 9 days.  The last three pictures I took were the mileage gauge of my car, the mileage of the whole trip and my dad and I in our self-taking picture trip embrace…and both of us closed our eyes as the flash went off, which depicted our exhaustion so perfectly that we kept it and didn’t bother taking another picture while out in the cold, dark night.

That’s how the trip concluded.  Dad pulled all the stuff in the house and, like every other day (especially those traveling against the timezones), we arrived after the sun set.  All of it, the long days in the car and the daily stop offs and little explorations in towns across the US were totally worth it and I can’t wait to experience it again the same way.  Pictures are being posted on my Facebook page, which is honestly the best and truest way I can depict the trip, from the unchanging landscape of Kansas to the undulating mountain sizes in Colorado and back through the bleakness of most of Illinois to the comfort of home.  It was an amazing trip and an unbelievable way to celebrate getting my driver’s license.  Heck, I probably got myself enough experience to comfortably move out to Colorado now.

Perhaps that is the next series blog to come…

I wake up on Saturday and my dad tells me that, when he was down talking to the front desk last night, that he saw a woman check in with a shrill, southern voice.  He said he overheard her questioning about a charge for use of the safe in the room and that apparently you have to see it and request to have it removed.  My dad had it removed from our bill, which I verified as we checked out to go get a hot breakfast at the Calypso buffet inside Isle of Capri.  I walked in and there were still people gambling and smoking.

We get through the line to be seated at the buffet.  Right across from me is one of the fattest teenage boys I have seen.  I could tell he was enjoying multiple plates of his breakfast for sure as he was joking around with his friends, including one of the bus boys who worked there.  Parents brought their kids to get the 3.99 breakfast buffet, which is originally 7.99.  I understand that the meal is cheap, but I don’t think I would want my kids to be sitting in a room right across from a gambling casino.  I’ve seen kids at Vegas too.  It just seems…odd and wrong.  I even saw a busy boy who looked like my college best friend.

All in all, not bad for a $3.99 buffet.  Eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, omlettes, mini donuts, pastries and french toast sticks!  We stopped to get gas at a QuikFill just outside St. Louis, which I think was the same store we stopped at on the way up.  At least the drink machines and everything else was in the exact position as the place we stopped at on the way up.  We were so full that we didn’t stop for food on our drive to Dayton until we got halfway through Illinois and we found a Long John Silver’s.  Dad got a fish basket and I got a fish sandwich.  It was ugly and dreary all the way through Illinois, but as soon as we hit the Indiana border, it all cleared away.  Huh!  …I still think Indiana is a dreary state though.

The sun was setting and I pulled into a gas station before it got dark.  I searched for the best gas prices in the area and we went a mile out of our way into a suburb of Indianapolis.  My dad got a little peeved because the station I found, which was 2.61 when everything else was 2.84, was a cash only station with no bathroom.  I pumped the gas and had him drive over to a K store to use the bathroom.  The cashier at the K told us how much my dad and I look alike, which made him feel younger than he is.  And then, of course, we drive the rest of the way to Dayton, which is the only hotel that I don’t have to pay for because my dad was eligible for the senior discount there!  The woman checking us in didn’t believe it and they got a good laugh at it.  I had been laughing for a good 5 minutes at that point.

Then we left to go get dinner and actually found a Big Boy.  Dad wanted an actual dinner so he got a hot open faced sandwich, while I got my Big Boy burger, which my dad wanted to try.  According to him, the sauce used to have red in it and it was a sesame seed bun.  That differential aside, both of us had a nice dinner with a good salad bar (always a plus in my family!) and went back to get some sleep before getting ready to conclude our trip the next day, which inevitably was going to start with that continental breakfast.  We will see!