Dreams, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

So it's been a bit over a week of 30 and all my questions and doubts about life have either been answered or disappeared.  Thanks for reading my blog, that's the end.

Well, ok, not at all but in some form life feels different.  I've realized,p with each passing year, there is a natural progression to life and growing up, if you will.  When we are young it is so easy and natural to think everyone older than us doesn't know a thing.  And maybe we don't have a clue as we grow older, we just get more comfortable with the reality of most things being out of our control and that even as we learn and gain knowledge there is so much we don't know and never will.  Age is just a number sure, but growing older is a reality all integers aside.  

It's not that I've ever really cared what anyone else thought, or that I've been consumed with what to do with my life.  If anything I've been consumed with self-doubt, which is probably the crux of mine and many others' existence.  But that is what you start to lose overtime, the self-doubt.  I found myself the first few days after my bday, thinking "ok, what am I going to do with the next 30 years of my life?"  But not in my usual anxiety filled and downtrodden way, in a much more "holy sh$t it is pretty amazing to have lived this long, have all kinds of crazy experiences and have so much more life to live".  I've always believed I could do whatever I want, but in the past the focus there was much more on how challenging it would be to do the things I dream of.  Now I find myself feeling more light and excited about building a dream.  If only I knew what that dream was.  

My first hero as a child was John Deere.  I had multiple little green tractors, and even invented an imaginary friend/side-kick to Mr. Deere named Steering Wheel.  The first song I ever wrote was "riding the bike with the tractor song" and I believe those were the only words.  When my brother accidentally hit me in the head with a croquet mallet, the only time I cried was when I dropped my John Deere tractor while getting stitches.  And the one my siblings loved most was the day my dad asked me, at the age of about 4, where we should go for the Sunday family trip... I said John Deere's House, because why not?  We drove for a few hours to a small museum/farmstead in Northern Illinois, Dixon I believe, and got there shortly before it closed, everyone was thrilled.  For the first six years of my life all I wanted was to be a farmer.

From there I became fascinated with Davey Crockett and in some ways, at least I would like to think, more so with First Nations' culture.  I was amazed by all the things they made and found their clothing to be way awesomer than mine.  Granted my corduroy overalls with trains and tractors all over them were pretty cool.  I did my best to make and wear as many of these items as possible.  I beaded, made pouches and drums and slept in my miniature teepee whenever I could.  This lasted for quite some time.  I was homeschooled till 8th grade; I remember the last couple years I was a bit weary of being seen roaming the neighborhood in my various outfits when the public schools got out for the day.

Intermixed with all this was an intense obsession with Legos.  At any given moment I had about 80 sets put together taking up every space in my room.  I loved building them and using my hands to put things together.  I still have them all and will hold onto them and one day pass them onto my young ones as the current Legos don't come close in awesomeness to the older ones.

And then came Michael Jordan.  I was too young and focused on Davey Crockett for the first 3-Peat, but I watched every single playoff game of the second one.  I spent hours at the basketball court reenacting  Jordan's numerous game-winners over and over again.  I wasn't destined for basketball stardom though.  I grew to my current 6'1'' with a size 13 shoe by age 13 and did not receive the gift of coordination until five years later.  In not the greatest ways I embodied some of Jordan's overzealous competiveness in my soccer playing days.  Sometimes I think I've grown out of that, but I'm realizing that isn't the case, I just don't play competitive sports anymore so it doesn't come out.

Intermixed with all that were numerous other obsessions from Whales, Medieval Times and Star Wars to the Civil War.  There are also many many more embarrassing stories, but I'll leave that to my siblings to start their own Peter's Growing Up Story Blogs.  I was definitely busted on more than one occasion having epic sword fights all by my lonesome in the backyard.  Anyway, put all that together and my ideal job is something like a farmer, marine biologist, historian, carpenter.  Although my 8th grade career quiz said I should be a Cake Decorator, that may have been the beginning of my lack of faith in public school and standardized tests.  Is there a masters degree that covers all those?  Maybe it is just living and learning?

So what is the dream?  After all the childhood fascinations I've grown up to study psychology, become a musician, a fledgling Yoga teacher and a pseudo writer among many other things.  I got into grad school for counseling before I moved to Canada and was slightly conflicted about not going, but now I am glad I didn't.  I like to help people I know that, who doesn't, but I'm not sure how much my motivation for going into counseling is pure.  I know it comes from experiencing trauma, chronic illness, loss and disability firsthand, but does it come from my heart?  I thought for a long time I would be a carpenter, Legos showed me how much I love to build things, but after losing my leg I decided carpentry would be too physically strenuous so I never pondered it again.  I am realizing more and more how much this competitive/physical energy still exists within me.  How my brain thinks, great do counseling help your fellow survivors because that makes sense, and keeps drowning out my heart, which is saying go and physically give all the energy you can into something whatever it is because that is what is going to help you.  I know it is not unique to me, but it rears it's head in different ways, the energy of life, the anxiety of it and right now I honestly think I would be miserable as a Counselor as I wouldn't actually be doing it for myself.  

So again, what to do?  Internet?  Are you there?  Do you have the answers?  I've thought about going to school for prosthetics on and off for years and for whatever reason said no I don't think so, but now I am thinking that may be the answer, or more likely one of many.  I know I don't necessarily need to go back to school as there are so many ways to learn and get to a place you like.  But a prosthetics degree would give me some amazing knowledge, allow me to build myself amazing legs as well as help other people maintain mobility and or regain the ability to go be a competive jerk just like Mike.  I would also get to work with my hands to build something. 

If life has taught me anything it is that you can't heal the mind without healing the body, and that that goes both ways.  As much as I know about the mind, as much as my mind never stops, I think I want to do something more tangible.  And besides, whether I ever get a degree in counseling or not, if I can help people with their bodies', I can help people with their minds'.  

It seems this blog has turned into my proclamation platform; going so far as to proclaim I will not proclaim anything ever again.  So, I am proclaiming that I am not proclaiming someday I will attend a Masters in Prosthetics program, is that a proclamation?

What I do know is Millissa and I moved to Saskatoon with the idea of living here a year and then moving somewhere for me to go to school.  It's been a year and a half and we are here for at least another year at the minimum.  It is a great place, full of good people, doing good things so nothing wrong with that.  Sometimes I think we've held ourselves back knowing we were potentially taking off sooner than later, afraid to really commit to friendships and what not, which is not a position either of us wants to be in.  We are making our comitment to saskatoon for the time being.  

I'm making my comitment to continue checking my focus, keeping it from falling strictly on the things I've lost and can no longer do and moving it to the fact that I cannot deny; I've been lucky enough to live a pretty incredible life upto this point and there is so much left to live.  Prosthetics is on my radar and will continue to be for one reason, when I think about doing that I can feel it in my heart, if that stops, I won't do it.  

Becareful with your dreams friends, make sure that they are really yours, that you feel them in your heart and in your body, that they are not exclusively backed up by reason and logic and then go for them with everything you've got!

P.S. The proof is in the pudding, that's me on the far right, homemade bow and arrow and all.

The Big 3-O!

I always thought I wouldn't be one of those people going "oh lord, I'm turning 30!".  But now I find myself in that boat, maybe it is just so culturally perverse that I can't avoid it.  Either way it feels significant now, but I'm fairly certain that a week or even a few days after it passes I won't be thinking about it at all.  

On the other hand, as I continue to hit these regular life "milestones", I am continuously struck by the new and different perspectives I gain on the life I've lived.  It is only natural to have perspectives shift over time, to know the things that have shaped your character and still come to a point where you think "did these events really happen to me?".  

Which brings me to this, 10 years ago I was 20 years old, ten years ago I was still battling cancer and living at my parents house, tens years ago I was a child facing things far beyond me, ten years ago I was facing the fact that I would soon be an amputee for however long my life lasted and ten years ago, on some level, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was facing the stark reality that I would be lucky to live to see 21 or 22 let alone 30.  So here I am, now.

Still struggling with the same issues I've had for years, understanding them better and deeper and striving to move beyond them, sometimes vigorously and other times reluctantly.  I find my heart lights up when I can help people, and more importantly help people achieve things that they don't believe they can.  I often wonder should I be pushing harder with this, should I be a world renowned motivational speaker by now?  And while I do enjoy public speaking, I don't know if that is exactly who I am.  For me, you can't be going around preaching that you can always make the best out of everything; the fact is life is going to kick your ass at some point.  And honestly, I am of the opinion the sooner it does the better off you are; the sooner it does the sooner you know no matter what you have to live though you will be ok.  Maybe I should be a reality speaker known as Doctor Peter!?

The fact is I do more or less believe anything is possible, but I also know trauma and difficult situations stay with people and take time, courage, perseverance, creativity and countless other things to move beyond.  Even so you never really move beyond these things because as they break you, they make you stronger and that is what makes you who you are. 

So some days I go out and teach Yoga to youth who have been through things I can't even begin to process.  Other days I teach the young ones so they can see someone who has adapted and have something to draw from when they have to adapt as they grow up.  Other times I am in line at a coffee shop with a woman who is recovering from a stroke, who notices my slight limp and strikes up a conversation with me.  Next thing you know we're sharing abbreviated versions of our life story's and even though it is a short conversation, the connection there is so much deeper because in a matter of seconds the understanding of what we each have been through is significantly more profound than any of the words we have spoken.  And then I head to work and do what ever I can for the individuals with disabilities I support to get in touch with the abilities they inherently possess and allow them to live lives full of joy.

Don't take this to be me tooting my own horn, this is how all good people live life.  Whether you are a writer, a programmer, a teacher, a nurse, a cook, or anything inbetween (that's a shout out to you family!!!), we do it to make others live's better which makes our own lives better.  So please, whoever you are, wherever you are and whatever you're doing keep putting you're heart in it, the world needs you.   

On another level I know I help people because then I don't have to worry as much about myself,  but if you go too far in that direction that isn't healthy either.  I'm noticing I'm always willing to atleast attempt to take another commitment on, sometimes to the detriment of my own well-being.  Which brings me to the present moment, turning 30 eve (is that a thing?), Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' "Damn the Torpedos" blaring from my record player (this is definitely my turning 30 album, and it sounds so good on vinyl..) and all I can think about is change.  More specifically the lifelong, fundamentally human experiential question of "do people change?"  Which seems to creep up more and more the older we get, the more we get to know ourselves and the more we see others get to know us.  

I do believe people change, I know I've changed, but I also know it takes a massive amount of discipline and heart to move beyond what are sometimes naturally inconvenient bad habits.  I've wondered why I haven't continued to write atleast monthly and then I think "how many times can I write and rewrite the fact that my life has been hard".  I know that the thing I know better than anything else in life is suffering.  There is a flipside to that, namely triumph, perserverence and joy, so that is a part of my reality as well.  But now as I grow older, and as mine and Millissa's relationship progresses, I am realizing how much my focus has been on the fact that I know what it means and feels like to suffer and lose things very near and dear to one's heart.  Being so close to another, I am begining to see how this focus on suffering has shaped me and how it can shape my interactions with others.  I swore off proclamations to the internet a few blog posts ago (that is ridiculous I'm even saying that).  That beings said all I can think about right now is how do I bring more joy back into my life?  How do I shift my focus, how do I move from sad inspirational figure, to joyful whatever the hell I want to be?  Millissa has brought a ton of joy back into my life but I absolutely cannot rely on her to do that, so how do I do it myself?  So how do I change!  Not fundamentally change who I am, because I don't know if that is possible, but change my focus on what makes me who I am.  I mean who wants to be made of suffering when there is real and palpable joy to be had?  So maybe that is what this next chapter of my life has instore, I'm going to do my best to make sure it is.  

I was chatting with a close/lifelong friend shortly before I got married, he said to me "it's like the old Peter is back".  This struck a chord in so many ways, I had just taken a massive leap of faith and was full of nervous joyful energy so I understand it.  Still, this idea that there was a new me and an old me, a happy me and a sad me and so on, it stung a bit to realize this wasn't so much an idea as a reality.  Of course there is no going back and that isn't what I want.  Again, shifting my focus, changing thought patterns moving from rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and grumbling while strapping on my prosthesis in the morning, to realizing how amazing it is that I am still alive and have access to the prosthetics I do.  Stopping judging people who have not, in my eyes, lived through much and thinking "well you haven't lost so it is still easy to be inspired by life", how unfair is that?  Not only to others but to myself for cutting off chances to interact and relate to people.  I have things to share, perspectives, insight, experience and so on but so much to learn from others, and I have to start making more space for that to happen.

Alright I'm rambling now and this is getting too heavy for a birthday post.  Listening to a song I wrote probably almost ten years ago now,

"I had no idea it would take this much to get here, I'm still heart broke about nothing, you're too good to be good, if it's worth it it's you know not always gonna be perfect, don't wait it's too late!"

Those lines pretty much sum it up, how much I didn't know then and still don't now, how heartbreak is just a part of life and even as it hurts it is a necessity, how striving for perfection is a waste of time and the things that are most important will never be perfect or ...nothing will, and how you can wait forever of you're trying to wait for the right moment or inspiration to change or take action.  The bottom line, it's always too late to wait, but never too late to take action.  

As always thanks for reading, thanks for the birthday wishes and thanks for all the support in the last decade!

   Onward and Upward to a New Decade of Joy!