What Have I Done With Challenges?
Some challenges are better than others.
As I have mentioned before, the reason why this blog is called The Ramblings of a Titanium Don is due to two reasons. A title I get to assume from the Society for Creative Anachronism (the medieval re-enactment society I’ve been a part of for over 25 years); and the three titanium plates holding together my right clavicle.
In case you missed this: On the last day of November, 1999, I was struck by a car crossing a street a quarter-mile from home. I suffered pretty severe injuries to my right leg, right clavicle, and nerve damage to my right arm. What followed was a year of serious recovery and therapy, and some pretty wicked scars.
Yes, it was a hit-and-run. No, they never caught the driver. Now, nearly 18 years later, unless I show you the impressive scars (or you manage to hit the titanium plate with a sword while fencing against me) you wouldn’t know how broken I was.
Important life lessons were learned.
As I was starting my recovery, I discovered that there were three primary ways to live life.
- Go with the flow. Let life live you. Go about the routine, let time have its way with you and the natural ebb and flow of life carry you along.
- Curl up in a ball and wait for death. Don’t experience life, complain about everything, blame everyone else, pray for the afterlife but mostly avoid this lifetime.
- Grab life like the proverbial bull by the horns, and take it for ride. Make choices, take chances, fight and push and manifest what you desire.
I quickly learned that I preferred option 3. My recovery surprised and delighted my therapists, my doctors, and my family and friends. I defied expectations of both the speed of my recovery, and the totality of it. It was during this period of my life that I came to recognize the power of consciousness creating reality. I knew only one option. There was no other choice. I would walk again normally, I would fence again. Hell, I would even run again with a fused tibia/fibula in my right leg.
This incident would redefine my life. Over the course of the next decade and a half I shaped my life philosophy, and majorly embraced conscious reality creation to manifest my desires. It’s not been without its struggles, and challenges, but it has redefined me in all sorts of unexpected ways.
Using the past to improve the present and future.
Every November there is a wonderful contest called National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo). The challenge: Compose a 50,000 word novelette in 30 days. The prize: The satisfaction of completing such a work. I have faced this challenge several years, and completed a couple works (such as Vortex Pilgrimage).
In 2006, my second attempt at NaNoWriMo, I was debating what to write. Several friends suggested that I should write out the story of my accident and recovery. In particular many of the bits that had become some pretty funny stories years later. I think we determined it might be an inspirational and humorous read for people.
This took my out of my comfort zone in several ways. I was working a genre I did not normally do. At that time I wrote sci-fi and fantasy more-or-less exclusively. I also determined, because of the nature of the tale, to write in first person. I normally work in third person perspective.
Most of all…there was a LOT of potential for embarrassment. Yes, on the one hand I had this amazing recovery going on. On the other, I was doing some rather uncool things (like cheating on my girlfriend). How would this be received, not only by those involved in the story (even with the names changed), but by anyone who read it?
The very definition of Crossing the Bridges.
Suffice it to say, I wrote the story out. I gave it an edit or two, and when I put up my author page, I included it in PDF for download. When we first started dating my wife read it…and despite my less-than-chivalrous actions portrayed in the story, she stayed with me.
For a long time I have resisted sharing this. Even though I have been told by several who read it this is one of my best works, I’ve been uncomfortable with taking it to a wider audience. One reason is because I feared it might actually BE one of my best works.
What’s that all about? Well, for a long time I was a sci-fi and fantasy writer. It was these genres in which I most wished to be known. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the notion of becoming known for anything else.
I am getting over that. Hence this blog, and hence why I have finally have edited, and subsequently published The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Trip to the Post Office.
A sordid, funny, hopefully inspirational tale.
I hope you will consider getting a copy of my book, read, enjoy, and please review it! I poured more of my heart and soul into this particular work, and told the story as truly as I could. As always, thank you for crossing the bridges with me!
GOAL LOG – Week 28:
Diet: Onwards and forwards.
Exercise: Fencing two days, two days of a single lap around the small lake. One day with a ton of walking.
Writing: The three blog posts were done.
Meditation: Five of seven days last week, never less than 6 minutes.
Gratitude: I expressed gratitude for 5 things on three days last week.
This is the forty-second entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
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