Soft Foods and Stepping Up

I flew back home to Phoenix this morning. I barely remember it as I'm still on painkillers and other meds but the thing I do remember is (a) thanks to Kim for picking me up (2) my flights went smoothly and (c) I was very tired when I finally got home. I lay down for a nap and was out for nearly 4 hours. Lord I needed it. Even now my eyes are dry and I'm still tired.

This was no picnic. I've got sutures all over the place so I'm afraid to let my tongue explore too much. One thing I did discover at Cocoon House was Hagen Daaz Dulce de Lece ice cream yumm! Tonight I'm sore, tired, swollen, and generally not feeling all that hot. I'll be glad to get back to "normal".

I head east to talk in Norwalk CT on Friday. My flight leaves here at 6:15am Friday so if you see me speak this weekend you'll see what I mean. I'm pretty/very puffy right now too and with a couple of Percocets in me you never know what I'll say. It could be pretty entertaining.

Speaking of entertaining, Chloe put together a video of my first match last week that's pretty nice. She did a wonderful job. It'd be interesting to put together a little documentary of the entire weekend. Here's the first piece:

Thanks for Chloe for her hard work in putting this together. She did a nice job. It was a pretty amazing weekend.

One thing I missed while I was in San Francisco this weekend was the latest installment of the HBO miniseries Pacific. I've really gotten into it and am watching the most recent one as I type. It's pretty intense. I can't even imagine what being in there must have been like. My uncle was a radio operator in the Pacific and the grim reality of surviving from today to tomorrow or simply from hour to hour is just amazing.

I'm coming to the end of a long string of commitments that have taken me from week to week to week. From training for the nationals to actually going and wrestling, to speaking in CT, to preparing and having this surgery, to my event in Norwalk this coming week - I've been fully engaged week after week after week. I've got some time on my hands coming up and I'm hoping a few things will happen.

First, I'd like to do some corporate speaking as part of PRIDE month so if there's opportunity in that regard please let me know. I'm working to make the SCC Program guide a success and need help in that area as well. I'm seriously considering competing at the US National Team Trials in June. I want to rebuild my we website. I've got a number of educational videos I'm hoping to consolidate into one single tool. I'd like to visit my son in Austin and my mom in Dallas. There's more, too, but that's the meat of it. And South Carolina? Who knows? The key is being able to pay my bills so that's at the forefront of my thinking. The rest is simply the details.

I want to re-iterate something I said yesterday. I refuse to be anybody's last priority. I don't need to be the top priority, mind you, and I'm pretty easy going about the various needs we all have at any point in time. But - when I'm an afterthought or a last priority then we've got a problem. Actual deeds defy pretty words to the contrary. My family has done a wonderful job to help me feel good about me and I think that 's something each of us needs to do. Anything that puts us in a place where we inherently feel bad about feeling good needs to be changed.

In my own world, the good news is that I'm doing ok. These last couple of weeks have been transformative in different ways But now it's time to get back to the "real" world. All I know is that my own real world involves lots of soft foods. :) The most amazing people who have stepped up have been Maria (love her!), Dr. O and Mira, my friend Kimberly, and Chloe. These people have put actions to words and have made what has happened possible.

Each of us needs these kinds of amazing people in our lives. I'm fortunate to have so many of them.