Making Preparations For Flight & A Challenge!

I could tell you that I have been resting and pondering since the last post (I have 'pondered'). And decided that I need to set strong boundaries which include resting and accepting limitations, like maybe not doing everything all the time. But that would be a lie.

I took a shower and wheeled up to the Y to rejoin. Yes, in the manual. And was told they had ‘changed policy’ and I needed to come back the next day. And that they did not accommodate ‘power chairs’ (the next day power that be wanted to know who said that, but didn’t say one way or another). BUT, I am NOW a member of the YMCA-YWCA and have my Recreation Integration Card and am getting ready to take flight.

The shower and going up to the Y in the heat turned out not so great as I wasn’t good on the breathing by bedtime and at one point breathed unassisted between 5-7 times over 25-35 minutes. I don’t think Linda was amused, since she was the one with the ambi-bag. The next day, after waiting for the person to get my membership for an hour in a hot, unventilated room, and then on the way home, I passed out and had to be brought inside and hooked up to oxygen by the people I was talking to. Then did the, “Look MA! I don't breathe!” trick again that night too. BUT I did accomplish what I set out to. I am however firmly grounded for now, and will be sitting still for a little while. But just you wait; I am going to fly. Not anymore because I think people won’t like me if I don’t or demand it but because I can. Because I want to, and because I want to show anyone, and everyone that what is possible is only limited to what can be dreamt, desired and the willingness to try even if you fail.

This is where you come in. Oh, like you thought you were getting out of this? Cheryl, three weeks ago, after the Moss Street Artist Display complained that she was so sore from the going up and down the hill and the distance. I said, “well, better keep doing a couple kilometers or miles a week so you are ready for the five kilometer events we enter into. Having a pit crew is nice, but having a fellow PARTICIPANT would be better!” She must have thought I was serious as she HAS been doing training. Which is good as the first 5K is in 3 weeks, and the next two weeks after that. Hee hee.

Most of us in our lives, are in some ways like me, limited, but not by heat and walls but by the limits we have put on ourselves. We live a good life, we live a crappy life, we all get by, but..... And that is it, what is it that makes you secretly look out when no one is looking, and what is it you dream, that you want to do?
September is coming they say and if you want to take a class, take it! So what if you are older than other students. SO WHAT?! Or if you are like me and indoors, then is there not somewhere you want to go, whether 1 block away or 10 miles? Is there no way, with planning, with time, that you can make a dream, a goal come true? Something that will only matter to you (and me). A picnic, looking at the stars, starting a new language, starting an instrument, starting a new project, restarting an old project, reading a book you have been putting off, getting outside to a place that is special to you, or just simply going someplace and remembering, honoring. Whatever it is, it is you flying. Like I said, I would rather have fellow PARTICIPANTS.

To fly requires two parts: to dream and to try. Dreaming is something some have let grow rusty, or hidden behind shields. Because to dream is to expose yourself to hurt, to have dreams, to lose them, there is pain there but there is also joy. And to dream you must believe that you can become more than you are, that you ARE a person worth taking risks. That you matter.

We all matter, but only some will choose to dream. And fewer still will risk trying to fly. For years, I have tried in all ways, in tactile ways, in words, in everything that you are unique, and hold unique dreams and desires. And that nothing is impossible, or few things. Many are scary, some are dangerous but the greatest limit is ourselves. It is time to dream what can be.
I am not asking that achieve it tomorrow, I am asking that you start TODAY! Not that you go out and run a marathon but if you want to run a marathon, or wheel one, then you dream it, and you write up a realistic plan on how that can happen. The hardest twenty meters to run during training are the twenty meters out your own door. To do it is to try and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I try two, three, six, seven times before I simply can get out ANYWHERE with Linda besides here. If you don’t try, if I don’t try, I already know our chance of success and then a dream is just that, something we build a shell over. And something we get resentful about when we see others struggling to achieve the same. Because there will be difficulties. But then, even I am not so sure on how to fly anymore, so there might be some bumpy moments. But as Amelia Earhart said (via Life and Times of Emma), “Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.”

I will leave these walls and I will go to the Y with a volunteer, or I will be so ill from trying that I will have to stop, to gather my strength, and to try again. But I will go, I will play badminton and I will box. Yes, that’s right, I am going to box. Because if the pain of muscles ripping is so bad that I can only handle one night of boxing, that is one night more than I have had this year. That is one night that I lived my dream. And nothing will ever take that away.

So I am asking to try flying with me. And yes, there might be a big splat. But there might not….then what? Another dream to try? Lots of reason to not. Truth is that you might have fragile wings, delicate. But if you have wings and never even try to fly...? Yes, scary to try: People can see us, we can see us, we are too old, too young, not experienced enough, not ready, not this month, not this year. There is ALWAYS a reason to not do something. I am asking to please find a reason to get ready to try. I am not the kind that goes, “Don’t ‘try’ but DO!’ as my rock climbing instructor used to yell. Not a well loved person. I, on the other hand, know that the ‘doing’ comes from honest ‘trying’ and that is all we can do, is try, with all our might. And regardless the outcome, I would be interested, if you are willing, to share how things went, or are going.

So, I am going to sleep and hope that I breath independently for the start and when I get up I will start matching postcards. I am resting up, but I didn’t say I was sitting still doing nothing! As for what else, and with me, there is ALWAYS something else, well, you are going to just have to wait and watch this space.