Live

It is said you should live life to its fullest.  Often, we interpret this as logging up a pile of experiences and events that range from meaningful to exciting to extreme or unique and far from the ordinary or common.

I look at my daughter and realize that she will most likely be cheated out of many fulfilling experiences or events and it strikes me that the definitions of "live life to its fullest" are relative and unique to each individual.

It is a highlight of a constant internal struggle I have with my parenting.  How do I find the balance of accepting her limitations without holding her back and denying her because of them? You may read this and think, "Why do you think she won't be able to do things others can? Don't you pay attention to the beautiful stories we hear and see seemingly daily about people defying the odds and doing things everyone told them they couldn't?"

I do. And that is my struggle.  While I want to provide her opportunities to experience anything and everything, I have to temper these wishes with the idea that many things just will not and cannot happen for her.

I can even take it to an extreme and think about classmates and friends of hers who are restricted physically, bound to a wheelchair or other apparatus.  They miss out on so much, it breaks my heart.

This is their life.  It is permanent.  Not a temporary injury to heal. It has always been and always will be their reality and their one shot at life.  If you really think about it, it can be overwhelmingly depressing.  At some point my mind will wonder and I will be back to an everyday life blessed with countless experiences, opportunities and possibilities.  They will still be here.

How can they live life to its fullest? 

Their "fullest" is limited in comparison to most.

It is a brutal question.

So I return back to how one lives a full life.  

We think of travel and excitement.  I think of a Bucket List.  Checking off a list of experiences or events to do or accomplish.

But why are these items on a checklist so important?  What gives them their meaning?

It's the emotion attached to these events, right?

The thrill, the love, the calm, the warmth, the excitement, the connection, the rise and fall, the victory, whatever emotion that these items on your list elicit are what makes you feel full. 

 The people you share them with as well, but even they are an emotion or connection.

 Living life to its fullest really isn't about the events after all.  It is about feeling the feelings.

Therefore, the Bucket List is bologna.  You don't need it to live your fulfilled life.

The key, the essence of living is wrapped up in the emotion, the feelings.  And this can be done right now.

You can start living life to the fullest by immersing yourself in the emotion of everyday life.  Fill yourself with emotions regardless of what it is.

BE.

Maybe my daughter doesn't experience feelings and relationships the way the rest of us do.  Maybe she never will get to do the things many people do and I will feel she is cheated.

Maybe her friends will not get to jump from an airplane, run a marathon, swim across a pool independently and so on. Maybe their loved ones will agonize over what can't be done instead of what can be done.

But they can immerse themselves in what they do feel. 

They can live their lives to the fullest.

February 15, 2005

Happy 2015, readers!

Even though I am a month and a half ahead of schedule with this post, it was the first thing on my mind this year and I felt like sharing it now, shredding the restrictions of writing things devoted to a date on that actual date.

Dates are just numbers anyway.  Their only meaning is the organization of the important things like events, memories and feeling, right?

Now that we are in 2015, it has been a decade since my wife and I started dating.  This seems like a minor detail that should have been discarded after our wedding and I suppose it is, but the story that goes with it is one I cherish and never hesitate to share.  This morning my thoughts revolved around our story and the decade that has passed together.

It is a big deal to me because ten years in is still not much more than the 9 years of our relationship prior which was much more casual. Sometimes it still strikes me that Vicki is my wife.  That is weird.  Who knew?

To catch everybody up, Vic and I met in 1996. We immediately struck up a really cool friendship that I held dear. The friendship waxed and waned.  We had other people in our lives, but we always maintained some level of correspondence.

In the beginning, we hung out often.  I visited her dorm, she would come to our off campus parties, we played softball and so on.  Over the summer we talked regularly on the phone and I would come up to Cleveland to hang out with her and her friends and she even came all the way out to my Dad's house where I would stay to hang out. Those were some LATE nights. We were young.

Things remained very casual though. I was clearly in the "friend zone." But it was never about that really. For nine years it was never about that.  I was fine with it.  This is why I wake up on New Year's morning with our son and daughter invading our bed thinking, "how the?"

Some years we were closer than others.  We may go a year or two with nothing more than emails meant only to secure her alumni football tickets.  Other years we were taking a bar tending class together.  Or she was a bridesmaid in my wedding.  Or I was flying all the way out to LA to visit her. Or she swung through my packed up apartment to meet my baby girl who was less than a month old.

2004 everything changed.

I found myself hitting the reset button on my life.  This time with toddler to care for. The reset was not a clean slate.  There was a good bit of baggage and I had plenty of cleaning up to do.  So things looked scary if not daunting for me.

I still remember this like it was yesterday.

I thought about calling Vic to hang out like old times.  In the moment, it was nothing different than the countless past phone calls.  I hadn't talked to her in awhile so I wasn't sure if she was with someone and I was uncomfortable intruding so I hesitated.

I asked my sister and her friend what they thought and quickly the conversation became more than I originally intended because for some reason, I decided to bring up the idea to see if she would be interested in going to my brother's wedding with me.

Again, I was at a scary place.  I knew I would be fine going solo and I knew I should have and settled on it. No way did I want to bring a date to that situation.  It would have been awkward and uncomfortable for everybody.

But I hated the idea of being alone after so many years of not. It was scary and embarrassing.

Suddenly, here was a perfect scenario and sharing it only made my sister and friend push even more to call her.

Here I had an established friendship.  There was no weird, secret motives and questions.  Vic and I were both clear on where we stood and had enough of a history that our interaction would have been smooth and comfortable.  She knew my brother, my family and our friends already from my wedding and our years hanging out in college. There was plenty of familiarity to ease things.  Conversation would be fine, dancing would be fine, all that.  Nothing we hadn't done a million times before.

(I've told this story a million times, you've heard or read it I'm sure.  It never gets old for me)

So I called.

No answer. Voicemail.

Crap.  I never should have done this!  Big mistake.  Abort.  ABORT!

Beep.

"Oh hey, Vic.  I'm in town.  Thought I'd see if you wanted to hang out.  Gimme a call if you'd like."

No way am I asking her to a stupid wedding.  No way.  Thank God for that voicemail.

Ring.

$h!t that's her.

This phone call changed my life.

No, I never brought up the wedding til months maybe years later. But we did find ourselves in another long, but thoroughly enjoyable phone call like the old days.  The Summer of '96.  Feels like it should be a Bryan Adams song but it was nothing like that.

It was cathartic for me.  Maybe both of us.

We both dropped bombs on each other sharing some personal stuff.  We found we were both at the doorstep of some major changes and both of us were scared.

Things picked up from there despite not meeting that weekend at the horse track.  I know, lovely invite, huh?  Horse track.  No wonder she turned me down.

I visited Lakewood more often.  She came out to my Dad's.  Our emails grew more rampant.  I cared a whole more about getting emails.  Every time I checked the inbox, I quietly begged there would be one from her. I moved my schedule to make time to visit her.  I never visited home so much.

It was about to get weird.

By the time 2005 came around, specifically February 15th, Vic and I began the scary future together.

That was a decade ago.

A decade.

A marriage.  A house.  Kids.

We have changed tremendously and I would think for the better.  I know I like who I am now better than who I was then.  Although, I wasn't really that bad back then in my opinion, I just needed to grow to get to where I am now which is where I want and wanted to be by now.

Vic often cites how much she appreciates people in her life for making her a better person.  This past decade she has made me a better person and I hope I have contributed to make her a better person.

This past decade hasn't been easy.  This is no romantic movie or book.  It has been difficult, extremely difficult at times. We still deal with our personal challenges. To be frank, that is the only way change happens is through work and effort and difficulty.  If it's easy, it ain't changin'.

I appreciate how we have both kept our eyes on the prize and pushed forward with respect for each other. i think that is the key to relationships, hard work and sticking to it.

I don't know how the next decade goes. Hell, I don't even know if we will still be together so I can write on 2016's New Year's morning about how we met 20 years ago that year.

But I hope so.  This story is too good and too important to me.