Unclosable

Minimalism is a new trend that has been surfacing the last few years.  The idea is to get rid of and not accumulate too many things to free up your time, energy and budget to live a lighter more centered life.    Minimalists and our younger generation seem to prefer experiences over things.   The older generations seemed to think that more stuff was the answer, but this way of thinking is beginning to shift.  The tiny house movement is an example of how this movement is taking shape.

I’m not sure that “experiences” is the best word to use to describe what humans are longing for?  Is the whole point of us being here on this planet to create the longest “experiences” list as possible?  I think of it more as the “feelings” that those experiences bring.  Remembering a positive experience will bring back feelings through memories.  And this is what I think humans cherish.  In the end all that will be left are these feelings.  These are the most powerful thing that this life here has to offer us.  In reality, these feelings ARE life.  These feelings will be what people will talk about at your funeral and when they remember you after you pass on.  To fully embrace these feelings while we’re alive is the way to live fully.  I believe that it is that simple.

The problem is that we can’t pick and choose which feelings that we want to feel.  By opening ourselves to feel the positive feelings more deeply we also open ourselves up to the not so pleasant feelings.  I purposely didn’t use the term “negative” because even if these feelings are not pleasant, there still isn’t anything wrong with them.  They are a normal part of what it means to be alive.  Like I said, to open is to open to all feelings.  There is no other way.

Society doesn’t do a very good job of teaching us this and our self-protection human nature kicks in trying to protect us from harm and we start unconsciously learning to avoid difficult and painful feelings.  And society thinks of those who get really good at this as the “strong” ones.  They are the ones who show no emotion, or show fake ones, going through life with very thick armor surrounding them.  First of all this is not true strength.  And this armor also isolates us from our ability to feel the positive feelings which are the best part of being alive.

When Adele was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes close to 15 years ago, the unpleasant feelings that arose were overwhelming for me.  I imagine that if I spoke with other Type 1 parents that they would surely agree that they also had a similar experience.  Adele was only 2 years old and it killed me to have to shove needles into her many times every single day while she kicked and screamed.  It was all happening so fast.  There was no time to grieve.  There was no time to deal with or feel these unpleasant feelings.  Looking back, I now realize that I mostly became numb and just put up a happy front.  I just stuffed these feelings inside and moved on.  That’s what society expects.  Nobody wants to be dealing with a basket case so I reacted by stiffening my upper lip.

I only cried once when the doctor gave us Adele’s diagnosis.  After that it was all business.  Everyone kept telling me that things would get better with time.  So I went with that.  One thing about Type 1 gaming is that even if insulin doses are spot on one day, the next they can be dangerously way off.  And it doesn’t matter if you’ve just been diagnosed or if you’ve been playing the Type 1 game for decades, the truth is that nothing really changes with time.  It’s a chronic life-long disease that needs to be dealt with 24-7 with no vacation whatsoever.  Insulin is not a cure.  It is life-support.

What did happen in time is that I became more and more shielded from all feelings thus all of life.  Now I had never been very open to expressing my feelings to begin with, but this got even worse after Adele’s Type 1 diagnosis.  It even got to the point where it affected my relationship with my wife.  She used to say that I would always be “in my own little bubble” and she was right.  We became more and more disconnected.  The concussion last summer broke me open.  And now I can become teary eyed listening to music.  Just like that, sitting at work listening to tunes and I feel water welling up in the corner of my eye.  I feel it build from my heart and move up and out to my eyes.  In those times I kindof wished that I had not popped my bubble or protective shield, but the depth of my relationships have increased so much that I would never want to go back.  Actually, once you are open I believe that there is no going back.

I believe that to live fully is to feel fully.  Opening is a lot of conscious work but totally worth the effort.  To be open is to be real, authentic and in the end the only way to truly live.

12 years old

 

The best thing about cycling is that it makes me feel like I’m 12 years old again as soon as I get on my bike.  The worse thing about cycling is that it makes me feel like 12 years old again as soon as I get on my bike. 

 

The 12 year old me is all about having fun.  He doesn’t have the aches and pains of a middle aged grown-up.  He just loves the thrill of the ride, the funny feeling he gets in his stomach when he’s riding, the euphoria… 

But the 12 year old me is also not very smart and often doesn’t make the best choices.  He is impulsive and feels indestructible.  He just wants to have fun and doesn’t really dwell on the possible consequences.  He hasn’t fallen hard enough yet to know any better.  He just wants to go go go…

Can these 2 versions of the 12 year old me co-exist sustainably?

11 months since hitting my head, my symptoms are still ever-changing.  I’m kindof feeling better riding on my good days.  A few weeks ago I went to Rotary Park to spectate the first Tuesday night Hub City Challenge mountain bike race of the season.  One thing that I noticed was that for the first time in as long as I can remember I didn’t feel like or miss racing.  That urge that was once ever present wasn’t there anymore.  I also felt completely done and exhausted afterwards when I got home.  The many conversations and noises around me seemed so overwhelming.  I felt dizzy and so very tired.  The last few weeks I have been feeling worse when I start riding, but better afterwards (this is new).  Social situations were fine in the past, but they seem to have now become too much to handle especially if I am already tired.  Again, symptoms continue to be ever-changing and I don’t really know what to expect except to simply accept (wow, that's a tongue twister).

I rode my mountain bike for the first time since my crash last week and was surprised to feel pretty good.  I have been having a hard time with movement while riding on the gravel trail and on the road but riding the singletrack was better.  Maybe it was the slower speed or the narrow trail?  I didn’t ride for long and didn’t push it whatsoever but I still felt like coming back home after being away for so long.  I felt more focused while the bike kept disappearing under me.  I felt like one with my bike again.  I forgot for a brief moment about the concussion.  And that scared the hell out of me…

Watching the latest BMX YouTube videos, I always cringe how some of today’s young riders have this “GO BIG” attitude attempting crazy stunts where if you miss the results are catastrophic.  Social media has created a generation that puts so much importance on getting likes and views that these two-wheeled daredevils have completely lost touch with fear.   Everyone dreams of becoming a hero, a legend and they’re willing to risk life and limb literally in the process.  Growing up I wasn’t like that.  It may have been a different way of thinking of my generation or just me, but I like to think that I had a very healthy fear that saved my ass oh so many times.  I did some dangerous stuff on my bike, but the lead-up to it was very, very gradual and achieved in baby steps.  It was a gradual progression guided by what this healthy fear.

In time, through this progression, a certain confidence set in and I felt very comfortable on my bike.  I could almost say that I eventually felt the most comfortable when on my bike.  And that confidence followed me as I grew older until I crashed and smacked my head.  Before the accident, I was never really afraid of crashing when mountain biking.  I mean, there was definitely a line that I wasn’t willing to cross, especially on the downhills, but in general I was never afraid.  I always rode with confidence thinking that the skills developed over a lifetime of riding could get me out of big trouble and save my ass.  This all changed last July.  And it really scared me when I forgot about my crash while mountain biking last week.  I felt afraid of not being afraid.

In so many ways I feel like I am relearning how to do the stuff that I did again, especially activities involving balance.  My physio says that my brain still knows how to do it all, but the messages that it needs to send to the rest of my body get screwed up because the pathways that it uses are still not 100% healed yet.  

I feel like many of the people that I know think that I am overthinking and over-analyzing all of this, that I am being paranoid, that I simply need to face my fears head on and begin living the rest of my life.  The thing is that no one truly understands how much this injury has affected me.  It’s very hard to explain.  In many ways it’s kindof like depression and other mental illnesses.  It’s invisible and unless you’ve lived through it yourself, you don’t really get it and tend to think that the sufferer should simply snap out of it.  At times, I felt so disconnected with outside reality and my physical environment that I didn’t really feel part of this world anymore.  Everything felt like a very lucid dream.  My symptoms affected every single thing that I did in an ever so subtle way but with such depth that not even simply 'being' felt real anymore.  Given the way my physical symptoms have literally changed my life and that they have persisted for so long I feel that I would be missing the whole point by dismissing them.  I need to listen to my body.  There is no way to just push through this.

Yesterday, as soon as I started my ride, the dizziness came and it’s like I lost the sense of what was underneath me.  I felt like the physical foundation on which I was riding wasn’t there anymore.  It’s very weird, but when this happens I can either turn around and go home or keep going while being extra careful.  Last night I chose the 2^nd option.  In this case I was very happy to be riding alone because then all of my focus and energy can be put on riding my bike.  When I feel like this I can only do 1 thing at a time.  And when I’m alone that thing is riding.  I can’t really socialize and ride when I feel like this.  It just makes the symptoms worse.  And that’s why I’m still riding alone for now.  Like I mentioned in the last post, it’s not because I don’t want to ride with anyone else, it’s just because my brain is telling me that it isn’t ready for it just yet. 

Like Type 1 gaming, injuries are so very humbling.  But I do think that their purpose is as a reminder of life’s fragility and an opportunity to develop compassion.  And that’s another reason why they must not be dismissed.  I believe that they are meant to soften and mold us into better humans.  It isn’t easy, but it has to be that way in order to really make an impression.

In the end maybe there is no end

I have been thinking much more about death lately. Before anyone starts freaking out, to be clear, I am NOT suicidal. I am just being honest…

Even if death is as natural as birth, in the western world, we are so uncomfortable with it that it has pretty much become a taboo subject. Just mentioning it when talking to someone will almost always make them feel noticeably uncomfortable and result in a reply like “Don’t talk like that” or “Let’s change the subject”. Talk about it too much and don’t be surprised if your friends and family suddenly organize an intervention thinking that you are suicidal (the reason for the 2nd sentence in this post). Death is the only thing that is a 100% sure thing for every single living being on this earth and as humans we mostly live like we are never going to die.

Sitting alone on the snow in the middle of the woods this past January while out fat biking, I felt like shit and so very disconnected. I felt like this whole post-concussion syndrome thing was just never going to get better and I suddenly had a new found understanding of why someone could give up on life. The thought of just walking off the trail into the woods and ending the suffering just came. In many ways it would have been so easy. If most everyone was completely honest and in touch with how they truly feel, I’m sure that most if not all have had such thoughts at one time or another. It was never something that I had the urge to act upon, but the thought did come.

I read that humans are the only animals capable of conceptualizing their own death. As a new dog owner I look at our dog Zen and can’t help but notice even more how ridiculously happy he is constantly living in the present moment completely oblivious to the fact that his time here is limited. In this sense I do agree that ignorance is in fact bliss. Or maybe he does instinctively know that his body won’t last forever and he doesn’t care or dwell on it? Either way, he deals with this truth way better than us humans.

If we’re “lucky” enough to prepare for our own death I believe it to be the ultimate teacher. Just like that it strips away all of the bullshit that our minds have created. You often hear of people experiencing a huge sense of peace and clarity right before passing on. All that’s left is love. Everything that wasn’t ever real disappears just like that. How smart and popular you were in school, how much money you made, how much stuff you had doesn’t matter anymore. The only material thing left in the end is our physical remains in a box or urn. Your rank in society doesn’t matter anymore. The only difference that it makes is in how fancy the box or urn will be. What does remain is the effect that you had on those that you came in contact with during your time here. All that remains is the effect of your love.

During my year-end evaluation at work last month, a thought came to me that whatever my supervisor wrote down based on my work performance was irrelevant. It really didn’t matter. The real evaluation will happen when I die. And my hope is that my friends and family never mention how “hard” I worked during my eulogy, but rather share how I made them feel. I am beginning to understand that living is not so much about achieving anything at all other than meaningful connections with others. I’m beginning to see that it really isn’t all that complicated. Just start with your friends and family and extend it out from there. Choose the only thing that is real in the end. Choose kindness and love.

We begin to die as soon as we are born. In reality, both birth and death are really the same thing. We can’t have one without the other. Death is what makes life so precious knowing that our time here is limited. But it also makes it less serious in that no matter what we do we cannot escape it. It is our fate.  And it is insane to try to fight it.  There is an incredible amount of freedom in realizing and living this truth. I like it here on this earth and don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid of it. The only thing that I fear is the pain and suffering that it will cause to those that I leave behind. But maybe that is just because my life mattered? And there is definitely a sense of peace in that.

A Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis is so much more than the death of pancreatic cells that produce insulin. It is the death of peace of mind. Insulin delays death and I am so very grateful for that. But the loss of peace of mind can be so very expensive. Nothing is certain and under control, and the Type 1 game is a constant reminder of this. Like any other death, it needs to be honored and mourned. The problem is that nobody had ever told me that…

Are you living the way that you would like to die? Are you spreading your love to what matters most? Are you practicing forgiveness? We don’t get to choose how and when we eventually die. But we do get to choose how we live. And how we live is how we die. Think about this for a moment. Ask yourself the question often. You certainly won’t regret it. That I know for sure.

10 months

May 5^th is my 10 months concussion anniversary.  If you had told me the day that I hit my head that I would still be talking about this now I would have thought you were crazy.  What initially seemed like simply “getting my bell rung” has turned into one of the most difficult things that I have ever gone through.

In many ways I would say that I was physically better in August than I am now.  But looking back to last summer the symptoms were there but after not the greatest advice from doctors I was in denial, not in touch with how I felt and thinking that it was all in my head (pun intended).  In many aspects, modern medicine is in the dark when it comes to concussions.

I’m really not sure how to answer when people ask me how I am feeling.  It can change from one minute to the next and I get weird looks when I go into any detail so I mostly just answer “better”.  Most people are just being polite asking and don’t really want to know.  A concussion being an invisible injury, sympathy and understanding don’t always come easy from others.  I don’t blame them.  Before this I am not sure I would have been very sympathetic either.

I am seeing some improvements, but nothing linear.  Even if I check-off a symptom from my list today, it can very well be added again tomorrow or next week.  I never really had any of the common symptoms like headaches, trouble sleeping, noise sensitivity and nausea.  One of my big issues is with my balance that is still off and I feel more uncoordinated than before.  I have a hard time focusing, especially in open areas.  My focus is pretty good in an enclosed area, but everything seems a bit more fuzzy when I’m outside.  It’s like the vastness surrounding me makes everything seem surreal and not 100% clear.  Aside from focus, my biggest issue really is with movement.  Usually walking is OK (speed is low) but sometimes it can make me feel off especially when I am tired.  Slow biking is OK, but I can’t handle riding too fast.  My brain can’t deal with the constant change of scenery.  In a car, because I am enclosed inside the vehicle, it doesn’t cause symptoms as much but it is worse if I drive for too long or after dark.  Oh, and I drive like a paranoid old man now – very, very cautiously and super slow.

I have seen a neurologist in February and he told me that I will make a full recovery, but that he cannot tell me how long it will take.  He also told me that brain injuries are cumulative so that I am more at risk for another concussion and if I were to whack my head again before this one fully heals that it would certainly prolong my recovery and / or worsen my symptoms.  For this reason, I am very, very paranoid of hitting my head again.  It is basically always on my mind and makes me very anxious at times especially when I’m feeling symptoms.

To all my friends who have reached out and invited me to go for a ride with them I really appreciate the offer, but right now it really takes a whole lot of concentration to just ride and I’m worried that adding conversation to the mix too soon could be dangerous.  Again, it really makes me anxious, so I will wait until I feel ready.  Riding on the road also makes me nervous right now.  Cars add a very scary aspect to a riding environment and I always need to feel that I am fully aware of everything around me when riding.  I don’t really feel that right now so I’m staying off the roads for a while longer.  Sorry if I come off as an anti-social snob when I refuse to ride with you.  It’s not about that at all.  It’s about listening to what my body and head need right now and honoring that.

I need at least 8 hours sleep per night.  Without this minimum, I feel my symptoms get worse.  Stress will completely wipe me out.  I just can’t handle it.  Last week, we were losing at the Type 1 game and it certainly wasn’t helping with my concussion recovery.  Type 1 Diabetes and puberty don’t get along very well and in our case has been causing huge and unpredictable variations in blood sugar levels.  For this reason I wasn’t feeling so well last weekend. 

I am still working full-time.  I get tired way more easily now and on most days I can pretty much only handle my day of work.  All that I can do in the evenings on those days is taking the dog for a walk.  I have been doing Yoga once per week and doing a Yoga Nidra Sonic Sound Healing class once per month.  I have done Physiotherapy, Osteopathy, Bowen therapy, Homeopathy and massage.  I have also been seeing a psychologist (3^rd one in the past 2 years).  I am seeing progress and on the days where I can be comfortable with the rate of my progression I am good.  Some days I do get impatient though and that usually makes me feel physically worse.  The only thing that I have not tried yet is medication.  No meds exist to accelerate recovery.  They would only help with the symptoms.  So far the only pills that I have been popping are supplements.  Some days I’m not sure if that is a good or a bad thing?

But it’s not all complaining and being negative.  I feel very grateful that I get a second chance.  It could certainly be much worse.  I just need to continue working on a newer, softer, more sustainable version of myself.  Life isn’t meant to be raced through and living slower is something that should be savoured.  When I’m in a good place mentally I can embrace the lack of speed.  But other days my mind tends to get back into its old habits and I feel like I should be doing more.

This past Sunday I was sitting alone on a bench along the riverfront trail when a few people rode by on bikes.  They were just riding at a slow pace enjoying the sunny day.  They looked like “normal” people, not super fit, not obese, just “normal”.  They looked happy.  As they rode away, a thought came up.  Why is it so difficult for me to say goodbye to Mike the bike racer?  Why isn’t “normal” enough?  As these thoughts came, I also noticed a flock of geese flying by and skillfully landing on the lake in front of me.  They carried themselves with such grace.  Their bodies just knew what to do to land safely and float peacefully.  Just like my body knows that my symptoms need to persist for a while longer to keep me safe from myself.  Maybe our wisdom is not in our mind.  Maybe we are not what we think of ourselves to be.  Maybe we are so much more.

The stuff that never goes on sale

Most people like free stuff.  We live in a culture that encourages and cultivates the belief that more is better.  One of the problems with this is that nothing is actually free.  I’m not talking about monetary cost here.  This currency is much more valuable than money.  

What if we consider the total time and energy that we have here during our short stint as a physical body on this planet and we create a pie chart graph to represent its distribution?  Let’s call it our life-pie.  A large portion of our life-pie will need to be set aside simply for staying alive.  This section includes the routine necessities such as eating and drinking, gathering food and water, sleeping, shelter or home care and maintenance…   A certain level of formal education is also required by law in Canada so that’s going to take up another portion of the pie.  And what’s left is up for grabs.  

 We spend the rest of our lives, consciously or too often unconsciously deciding how we want to spend the rest.  Our options are technically limitless, but the most popular choices are: parenting, marriage, family, friends, career, travel and sports / hobbies in no particular order.  Again, consciously or too often unconsciously, we then put our choices in order depending on their importance and how much time and energy we want to invest in each.  Some choose to put career first, others family, marriage or parenting.  These choices could be called our loves.  And all of the regrets that we may have lying on our death beds can pretty much be summed up by not having had our loves in the right order.  They basically affect every single thing in the way that we live.  

Adding to this, we’ve seen the emergence of a modern civilisation new way of thinking where the type A personality go-getters figure that they can put more than one love on the top of their list and excel at each one.  They feel entitled and truly believe that they can “have it all”.  The problem with this is that there’s only so much of the pie left and one of the prices that we end up paying for this mistake is half-assing each priority or love.  For some reason, not sure if it’s advertising or societal peer-pressure, but somewhere sometime someone taught us the lie that we could do it all.  And those of us who believed this lie dove in head first pursuing everything.  We can temporarily trick our bodies into achieving this by burning the candle at both ends, but eventually the price is loss of our physical (and emotional) health.  Eventually the body says NO.  I now realize that I have succumbed to this, especially since Adele Type 1 diagnosis over 14 years ago.

I personally believe that as soon as we become a parent a huge part of our life-pie no longer belongs to us.  I believe parenting to be by far the most important and difficult job that we will ever do.  But what does it mean to be a “good parent”?  Working extra hard developing your career so that you can give your kids more stuff and better life experiences?  Showing your kids love and praise by posting as many photos and comments on social media stating how much you love them and how proud you are of them?  Maybe it’s much more than that?  

I believe that our job as a parent can be summarized in one simple sentence.  A good parent is someone who can unconditionally love, support and be there (emotionally and physically) for their children.  That’s it.  Much easier when your child fits the mold created by society, much more difficult when they don’t.  I believe that the most important gift that we can give our kids is our presence.  This gift doesn’t cost a single penny, yet its price in terms of our life-pie is very big.

With kids, especially teenagers, there are opportunities for connection that arise at certain times that cannot be forced or created by sheer will.  If we’re not there as parents during these times, we’re missing the boat and our children are the ones who are losing.  These opportunities cannot be replaced or made, they just happen as part of the unfolding of everyday life.  We cannot expect to squeeze all of these moments in during a few weeks’ vacation to make up for all of the time that we are absent in between.  It simply doesn’t work that way.

Add a chronic illness like Type 1 Diabetes and there isn’t much left of our life-pie.  The amount of ongoing stress involved in being a Type 1 parent is extremely high and there’s no way to truly understand this unless you have lived it.  Our Diabetes care team doesn’t fully understand.  Our family doctor doesn’t fully understand.  Our psychologist doesn’t fully understand.  They have learned the Type1 game rules from books and a certain level of limited experience, but they don’t fully understand because they don’t carry it 24-7.  Now, I’m not saying this to put any of these people down because I really appreciate all that they do.  I’m saying this to make all Type 1 gamers aware, because when you’re in the middle of it you can’t always see it.  From the outside, you may project having it all together while everyone tells you to stay positive and soldier on.  But by realizing how much a Type 1 diagnosis changes everything, then my hope is that you can also find and develop a certain level of self-compassion.  

 I used to have a hard time distinguishing between self-pity and self-compassion, but now I am beginning to see the difference.  Self-pity is often one of the first places that you’ll find yourself after a chronic disease diagnosis like Type 1 Diabetes and that’s okay.  But if you stay there, you’ll eventually rot in sickness.  On the other end is what we could call “delusional positivity”.  Here, you’re not acknowledging your wound and if you stay here, you’ll also eventually rot in sickness from within.  Type 1 Diabetes sucks and is so very difficult at times and it is necessary for you to realize and recognize this.  Somewhere in between is self-compassion.  Compassion will allow you to honor your suffering and enable you to keep going.  I believe that self-compassion is as much of an important component of surviving the Type 1 game as administering insulin.  I believe that one of the greatest gifts that we can give our children is to work on ourselves.  To dig deep, heal our wounds becoming a living example of what it really means to strive towards loving ourselves.  This is a lot of work, but such a great investment.  True self-compassion is what comes out of this.  We cannot have self-compassion if we don't first love ourselves. 

Are you being honest with yourself?  Are your loves in the right order?  Are you living how you want to die?  Living also means suffering.  Are you suffering for the right reasons?  What exactly are you willing to suffer for?

Only you can answer these questions for yourself.

It is that simple.