Mind over matter; matter over mind.

The dichotomy:

I can do anything –

Then, the disease is so much more powerful than I can ever comprehend – who the hell do I think I am?

Mind over matter; matter over mind.

I have come to the conclusion that ever since I can remember, I have been striving to overcome the impossible.

I hear the drums banging hard in my head.

You challenge me – I will challenge you.

But the challenge isn’t with someone else, it is with myself. What I am able to do, how I able to mentally run, being chased, while they almost grab my shirt to stop me. But, I am able to get away sometimes slip away this-one-more-time.

Every five, ten years there are new challenges.

I cannot say this is been my toughest, but this one is clever, almost witty at times. Like a snicker. Someone sitting in the corner of a bar, playing pool, maybe just juggling with the eight ball quickly between their fingers. They know the trick – I must learn the trick. I must learn it fast and perhaps become the snicker – the eight ball itself.

I have hit a wall doing my pulmonary function tests. A huge part of me believes it isn’t actually the test itself – I mean, yes, it is partly since my lungs are not as good as they once were. But the other part feels as if it is forced upon me. If I refuse, I can almost see myself, if not at that moment, but later –

“What the hell, I don’t give a fuck.” It is because it is on my terms.

I honestly want to hit that machine sometimes and then other days I dream of the day when I blew it out of the water because my lungs were that healthy,

It is like looking down a long road, trying to retrace backwards – how do I get back there? How do I retrace, undo, redo, make it better, heal my lungs, overcome, and live longer?

Sometimes I truly believe I would be healthier if I still lived in Minnesota. Minnesota does have the longest lifespans in the country for cystic fibrosis patients. A large part why I am truly writing these words today is because I was born of privilege. Privilege to live 30 miles away from the best center in the country.

I ran with the tools they taught me, perhaps more than some – but they had the tools.

And they had the mindset. Many of those Midwesterners do have a glass-half-full philosophy. These New Englanders just like to push that down bit-by-bit at times. It is so against my being. I,then, must rise again like I never heard any words of resistance. Like I am not defeated and can do the seemingly impossible. If I had real money, I would fly back-and-forth and stay connected with the CF center in Minnesota. Perhaps they have changed – maybe not. I would be willing to find out.

In some ways, I feel as if I had real support of my team – and they are great – but I am doing this so much more on my own more than I used to. I don’t feel that energy that uplifts you and says, “Hell, you can do whatever you want.” They try and I truly believe they do the best that they can – but it just isn’t quite there.

I am speaking of my CF team alone, not my friends and family.

Every day I have to keep on track; keep focused; never give up and when I almost want to, I have to slap myself silly and say,

“Fuck, look what you have done. You are still alive.”

The other mind over matter; matter over mind.

What can I still do?
What has been taken away from me?
What hasn’t been taken away from me?
Or maybe nothing has been taken away at all –
Or maybe something has been – but it isn’t forever.

The most important thing – that mindset cannot last forever.

How does one do that?

Continually challenge, question, push, run, look down, look up, and look right in the eye.

This is my life. I am here to do the seemingly impossible even when I think I may not be able to do it. I just try and see. I work up to it with one foot and with one positive thought. Each one is just as strong as the other.

So – I still say fuck you do the naysayers. And perhaps, in the future, I will make a visit to the Minnesota CF Center, even once, just to visit. To talk, to say, to show – I am still alive.

Cause I am.