Moving and Living

Closed up shop in Portland and now doing the same in Wisconsin.  I've been back for over a week, introduced my wife to countless people and sent her on her way.  Now I'm still here, on my own, for a couple more days.  Even though I've been gone for over a year and a half everything feels different this time.  When I left for S. Korea and then moved to Portland it never felt permanent.  I was gone but there was nothing stopping me from coming back to Wisconsin, but my own stubbornness.  That can't be said for the current circumstances.  I'm headed to Canada and I won't be back for anything but a visit anytime soon.  At the same time Wisconsin is my motherland, Spring Green, Madison, the rolling hills and 4PeteSake, among others, are all things that I love and have great pride in.  I will continue to hold all the people and places here close, while taking my energy and creativity with me wherever I go.


I find myself emotionally overcome by all that I've been able to accomplish in the first five months of this year, especially in the context of what I've been through in the last decade.  I wanted this year to be different and I wasn't going to wait around and see if it would be different, I decided to make it different however I could.  Five months ago I started this blog and made some simple goals for myself, be nicer, less judgemental, volunteer and work hard.  I had no idea where that would take me, but I refused to believe anything except that doing good things would lead to more good things.


Now, here I am, lying in my old bedroom at my parents house, with two more nights in the States before I embark on my journey towards Canadian citizenship.  After getting married and being apart for three weeks you would think Millissa and I being separated for three more days, before I get to Canada would be a piece of cake.  It's not, I am amazed at how quickly we have both become accustomed to sharing space.  I don't like saying things along the lines of "you complete me" or anything like that because I believe we are complete beings on our own, yet the ones we love most have the ability to bring out the best in us by simply being themselves.  That is what I miss; Millissa and I being ourselves and existing in our own ways in shared space, while bringing out the best in each other simultaneously.  


Three days really isn't that long of a time.  What is time anyway?  Time and the perception of it seems to get stranger as you get older.  Lets see, not even three years ago I was severely depressed and struggling through undergrad with little hope in the future.  From there I went to unemployed graduate, reading Moby Dick and overstaying my welcome on any and all couches I could.  To working in Madison, to teaching in S. Korea, to Portland and heartbreak/isolation, to thinking "you know what, this is all amazing, the mistakes, heartbreaks, triumphs and defeats, all of it has challenged me and pushed me to the point I am now at."  Still, as we get older and time flys faster, there are moments when I think "did all that really happen?"  "I really did all that staff in the last two years of my life?"  I know I did but it doesn't even seem real, it seems surreal at this point.  I mean there is no one in this world who I would have believed if they told me in January, that by April I would be married head over heals and moving to Canada.  Maybe there is something to deciding that I had to stop waiting to believe in life again and that I had to just do it.


And now here I am in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  I made it through immigration with little problem which was a relief.  I was having some nervous moments leading upto coming here and even more so as Millissa showed me around the city on the first day.  It wasn't nervousness about Millissa and I, or moving to a city I've never even visited, I seem to do things like that often of late.  Millissa and I were eating lunch and she sensed my mind racing and kept pushing me till I would open up.  I hemmed and hawed as I'm still not completely used to this married thing where I can say anything, but Millissa persisted because she's great and that is who she is.


Once again, I find myself way out of my comfort zone, a place I'm getting more and more familiar with as well as a place that puts my issues at the forefront of my mind.  Due to immigration and the process of gaining residency I can't work for the first six to eight months I'm in Canada.  During this time I will be doing all kinds of things to keep busy; as Millissa will be managing a yoga studio, one thing I will be doing is yoga.  And that is what I am nervous about. After cancer I spent years in and out of depression, then I spent the last couple years healing and restoring hope in my mind, and now it is time to return to my body.  For a while I liked to think that I dealt with my intense competitiveness, but I'm beginning to realize I just buried it deep within me as I couldn't heel my mind and deal with the mental side of my physical loss at the same time.  And now, I know by doing yoga, by pushing my body, by continuing to heal, that the second I can't do something I am going to feel that pain of what I've lossed, the pain I've been running from for years, not out of fear but because I couldn't deal with it till I found a new equilibrium of existence and restored some of my mental strength.  So now it is time for this next chapter.


I spent my last day in Wisconsin with my mother.  One of the things we did was go and see a movie called "Free the Mind".  Among other things it followed some vets who were dealing with severe PTSD and not responding to traditional treatment.  The vets were put through a week of mindfulness and meditatiom training and at the end a number of the vets saw significant reductions in their PTSD symptoms.  A number of things struck me about this movie, one, I am not a vet but a number of the mental things I've gone through seem very akin to the symptoms of PTSD.  Two, at the very end of the movie there is a scene with the vets and their trainers are recapping the whole week, one of the trainers says, "just live, let yourself live."  That hit pretty close to home for me. In the simplest form what I've been going through can be summed up as, not letting myself live fully and enjoy the simply ordinary moments in life as I've lived with the fear of losing more after losing so much. And that's what it comes down to, whether vet, survivor or anyone else who has suffered or been forced to go through a traumatic experience, that experience wears you down and affects you in ways you can't understand in the moment.  I am more and more keenly aware of this everyday, I can tell when I get up in the morning and I am not letting myself live.  The more aware of it I become; the more painful and freeing it is at the same time.  


I haven't found the recipe for completely opening myself back up yet, but I know there is a reason I've jumped at all kinds of opportunities and moved all over the world the last couple years.  In the moment, as I made the decision to go to Korea, Portland and then Canada, I was unsure of the deeper reasoning behind these choices.  Now, I can see that I've done all of this out of a desire to live and free my mind and heart from the walls I've built  around them.  I wasn't sure how to live again, but I knew by moving around the world and getting out of my comfort zone, I would be putting myself in situations where I had little choice but to live.  It is interesting to look at the past couple years in this context, as I feel I've made some significant progress in getting back to myself and being the kind of person I want and need to be.  Still, I feel there is infinite room for growth and I look forward to the future and continuing to push myself, especially now that I have a partner to do it with.


What all of this leads me to is that I know on a deeper level exactly what I want to do with my life.  I'm not sure exactly what form this will take, but I feel, with what I have been through, I have to/want to help people live after going through trauma.  That is what I know, that is what drives me, that is what I am passionate about.  After losing something, or suffering for years, the last thing anyone needs to go through is years of mental turmoil on their own.  Yet, we all have our own life experiences, and not many people know suffering and trauma intimately, let alone know it, fight through it and then want to help others do the same.  But, I can't bare to think of my fellow survivors, gaining their physical health only to be depressed and frustrated with life for years to come.  Do I know how to stop this, do I have a plan, could I pull someone aside at this very moment and push them forward, probably not, but that is all the more reason to keep studying and pushing forward.  Everyone is different, everyone heals different so I need to find as many different ways to help people live as possible.  One thing I know I am going to do is get a Masters in Counseling... anyway, I'm ranting, but it is a relief to have found a calling that I have no doubt about following.  As usual, now that I have spelled all this out, I am itching to get started.  


That's all from Stoon for now.  You may be hearing more from me for a while as Millissa is the bread winner and I am the house husband!




Cheers, GET OUT AND LIVE!!!!!!!!!

Blogs on a Plane

I’m on a plane, flying hundreds of miles per hour, thousands of feet above the earth, leaving Portland, my home for the last 14 months, vanishing behind me.  The last three weeks have flown by and have included countless memorable moments. 

April 25^th, 2013 marked ten years to the day that I was diagnosed with Osteogenicsarcoma.  TEN YEARS.  It is hard for me to process that; hard to give it any form of concrete meaning.  And then I think about all the things I’ve done in the last ten years, all the times I felt defeated, all the times I wanted to give in and lay down and I know I never stopped pushing on.  If cancer did one thing to me, it made me realize I am a fighter.  It may not always look pretty but I know whatever storm comes my way, I can and will weather it. 

I had a moment a couple days after the 25^th.  I was walking home, the sun was out and it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  I started thinking about the last ten years in the context of the exact moment I was in.  I lost my breath and tears came to my eyes as I realized how hard I’ve fought to get where I am.  Illness wanted my freedom and I said “out of my cold dead hands”.  Since 2011 I’ve moved all over the world from Wisconsin to Seoul, South Korea to Portland, Oregon and now I am on my way to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  I’ve realized I want a partner in life and found one.  I’ve worked extremely hard at improving the quality of life for countless individuals living with developmental disabilities.  And I’ve made friends all along the way. 

That’s the only thing that scared me about cancer; the possibility cancer would take my life and thus my choice to give my heart and soul to the world and those in need.  Not to mention it would stop me from finding a woman and giving her everything I can.  But, for those of you who know me, if you want to get me fired up, if you want to make me mad, just tell me I can’t do something.  Just get in my way, try and close a door on me and you won’t know what hit you.  I used to have little control over this fire within me; I’m proud of the goals I scored in my soccer playing days, but not all the yellow cards I got.  Now, I would at least like to think, I have more control over my fire.  It always burning but I’ve learned to use it in a more positive and less destructive way.  

I worked up until the day before I left.  Over the last year I have gone from lowest wrung of the ladder to floor manager of a day program for people with developmental disabilities.  It is an interesting field because you are being paid to provide a service to people, but you are also working with the same people repeatedly and providing them with care.  What I am saying is, yes, you are being paid, but you also develop genuine relationships.   While stepping down from my position and preparing to leave I found myself feeling like a father sending his kids off to college.  I reluctantly relinquished my responsibilities and worried, “are these individuals still going to get the same quality of care that I provided?”  I know they will and I’m already letting go but I am going to miss these genuine and unique beings.  When your job involves playing guitar and singing just because it makes people happy, it is a good job.  I could say a lot more but there are confidentiality issues in the field and I wont break them.

I spent my last week in Portland burning both ends of the candle, working by day and saying goodbye by night.  On Wednesday I spent the evening with my good friend Andrew participating in a Lego building contest.  We were given a theme, a bunch of Legos and 75 minutes to build.  The theme was funny.  Besides Andrew and myself there were two other acquaintances on our team.  One guy had participated in the contest before and said all the judges want is to see something funny and ironic.  After they said the theme was funny this kid says, “okay guys, what’s funny and ironic?”.  I almost exploded, “you asking me that is horribly and funny and ironic.”  I didn’t though, like I said I control my fire.  I suggested we build a giant mustache as a joke and they thought that was a great idea, I thought it was way too predictable and not very clever. 

Anyway, I just started building and one way or another we got on the subject of Arrested Development so we went with it.  We had a foot and a half tall Tobias Funke in nothing but jean shorts, complete with a window in the back of his head containing some Teamocil.  I built the sturdiest Lego Stair-Car ever made, complete with a hop-on.  Andrew built the prison containing White-Power/Dirty Ears Bill and George Senior.  He also built the Banana Stand, on fire, with money in the walls.  And to top it all off we found a Lego figurine with a cape and built him a segway…need I say Job?

There were some other somewhat impressive structures but nothing that blew me away.  The time limit came and went and then it was time for judging.  Considering we spent the first half hour having no idea what we were building I thought we did well but I didn’t think we stood much of a chance.  Then the other contestants started coming by, at first they would look confused and then they would start to put it together.  Everybody loved it and very quickly word spread through the entire bar that there was a Lego Arrested Development Menagerie on the back patio.  We WON!  The judge, when announcing, the winners said our piece brought out a lot of emotions, which I thought was funny, I mean come on, it is a Lego tribute to a sitcom, that shouldn’t get you that emotional.  It was great night.

                      Not the greatest photo, but you get the idea.

Then there is Millissa.  Getting married and immediately being apart for three weeks is not the greatest thing in the world.  Still, I am so proud of her for following her heart and getting way out of her comfort zone by going through two and a half intense weeks of AcroYoga teacher training.  It has been an interesting time for us as we are both going through very different yet challenging situations.  Me packing up and leaving Portland and Millissa honing her skills for the future.  Not to mention us both being incredibly busy and on a three hour time difference.  All that aside, I am really proud of us for handling the situation as well as we have.  Even if it is just a few minutes here and there, we made time to talk everyday.  With each day that passes our love grows stronger and I realize on a deeper level that I really have found the woman that stirs my heartstrings to no end.  And now we’re down to two more days until we return to each other. 

It hasn’t really hit me that Portland is no longer home.  I am going to miss a number of things about the city, but obviously since I am leaving it never exactly spoke to me in a way that made me think this is where I need to be in the world.  I don’t know what Saskatoon will hold for me, but I can’t wait to find out.  All I know is that I will keep approaching life with all the vigor I can muster because that is the only way I know.  I know this next chapter in life, being with Millissa, in a different country will be challenging but I also believe with my whole heart it will be amazing.  In closing, Canada, I coming for you with everything I’ve got!