For Crying Out Loud

Maybe I’m just as bad as my sisters.  In the past, I had no problems airing my “dirty laundry” online.  Why not?  All my friends, who only sorta knew my situation would automatically take my side, and I’d have instant support.  Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of something like that?  That was high school for a vast majority of my generation.  (How long is a generation?  Is some of my generation still in high school?  Clearly I still should be.  Not that I want to go back, no thanks.)

So here I am, seven years after high school, and I’m back to pouring my heart out to the world wide web.  I’m not sure how many people read this, as apposed to my LiveJournal days.  I don’t always link these posts, usually when they are on the more private side, but I might link this one … ‘cuz I want it read.  It amuses me to see the cycle.  I’m back where I started, changed, and an all around better person.

What I really wanted to write about was Rosie.  For those of you who don’t know her, she’s my super amazing, down to earth, “crass” (to use one of Rhiannon’s favorite British-English terms), and frank persons I know.  She’s no bullshit, but hardly ever business.  If there was ANYONE in the world who was destined to be a mother, she’s the one.  Her love is firm, but never ending, and motherhood has been her dream for as long as I’ve known her (which has been her whole life).

Last night I got a call from my lovely sister.  Rosie had an eye doctor’s appointment yesterday, and she found out she is almost completely blind in her right eye.  Let me back up a little.  Two years ago in July, Rosie gave birth to my godson, Landon.  After the pregnancy she started seeing silver fish in her right eye, and whoever (not sure if it was a doctor or a post-pregnancy nurse, she told me, but I forgot … I’m a bad brother sometimes) told her it was postpartum migraines.

Rosie has always been delicate, and I mean physically.  If you knew Rosie, you’d know how strong she is.  Always trying to rise above her limitations.  Never truly falling into the victim role she could play (although, understandably, she does have her moments).  She’s used to get in trouble for fighting at school … and I’m pretty sure she’s still in denial about being white–but that’s another topic.  I just can’t stop thinking about how awesome Rosie is, and how awful what is happening to her.

By delicate I mean, Rosie has always been small.  When she was born my mother had to put her in cabbage patch doll clothes.  She was born with a bone disease (inherited, albeit a stronger form of it, from our great-grandmother) called bradydactyly.  She still gets teased about her small fingers, but I don’t know anyone else who can give me the middle TOE!  For the longest time she was afraid of not being able to have kids, because of this, so when she had Landon … it was the best thing I could have hoped for her.  This eyesight loss seems like a cruel trade off.

Turns out, the whoever at the hospital misdiagnosed her.  If it had been postpartum migraines, she would have seen silver fish in BOTH of her eyes, coupled with, you know, an actual migraine.  Now, two years later, her retina is almost completely separated (with little hope of salvaging it) from the back of her eye.  The “worst” part about it … Rosie is pregnant again.  Even if there IS something they can do, they have to wait until AFTER she’s had the baby.

Knowing Rosie, this won’t slow her down at all, but I can’t help bawling my eyes out (definitely no pun intended).  Just the thought of her not being able to see Landon and the coming baby grow up … it’s not something I’m handling very well.  And it also makes me wonder if I can do something about it.  Just the other day Rhiannon was telling me that there is technology in development which can literally PRINT live human organs.  It’s yet another reason why what Rhiannon and I are doing HAS to be great.  There HAS to be something I can do for her.  Maybe not now, but not too far into the future either.

67 Ways to Love

Screen shot of my Pledge on Mandeladay.com

I’m not quite sure how I stumbled onto this website today.  I must have clicked a link from a tweet or something of the kind.  I watched the hands video – the link in the picture above is a link to my very own hands video!  And although I don’t remember what brought me to the site, I know why I stayed.  I feel like, and always have felt like, I can make a difference.  People always ask me why I write.  I don’t always have an answer for them, yet when I come across stuff like this from people like Nelson Mandela I know very well the reason I write.  I write because I want to effect others.  I want to get people’s brains working again.  I want to show his world – chalk full of technology, disease and hate – that it’s simple to revert back to being human again.  If I happen to get a few kids interested in reading, my job is even better done.

It’s true, I dream of fame and fortune.  I yearn for the spotlight.  I’ve always been an attention seeker.  It’s also true I haven’t always thought about what I’d do with that attention, but it’s good that I am trying to figure it out before I get it.  I’m more than sure I’ll get it.  The project Rhi and I are working on feels like ever so much more than fate.  When inspiration hits me it’s like a freight train coming through my body, and the results are always eye opening.

As you can see in the picture, I’ve pledged to write 67 articles on how humanity can turn to love.  This article does not count, heh.  I’m going to forgo writing “Morning Constitutional” entries for a while and focus on this series.  However long it takes.   Whether it’s 67 days or the rest of the year or MORE!  I will write these articles.  This will be my imprint.  Or, at least one of them.

I am also placing this article under “Book of Intentions,” because I feel like other people will want to join this cause too.  If everyone did something, then the world will be changed by these simple gestures.  If a week of group meditation can reduce the crime rate in Washington D.C. for an entire summer, then imagine what you could do just by choosing to have a brief yet positive influence in your own private world.  We all could use some more love and understanding for others.  Be human.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Seeing as this is my first entry into a series I am calling Our Book of Intentions, I’ll give us a little intro.  I mean for this section to be just as the title suggests.  Here we’ll post quick blurbs about things we see and want to pray/project good energy towards.  Inspired by the notebooks kept in the back of every Parish Joey spent his Catholic childhood in, this is simply a place for us to mention and remember those things we care about or wish the best for.

I chose Aung San Suu Kyi as my first entry, because a person on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalger Square.  She just stood there shouting the same scripted, partially inaccurate lines continuously.  Lucky for me, she only had to do it for an hour.  Lucky for Aung San Suu Kyi, this woman caught my interest.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been fighting for democracy in Burhma, and has spent thirteen out of the last nineteen years as political prisoner.  Most of these years being under house arrest.  The woman on the Plinth called for Ms. Suu Kyi’s freedom.  I’m sure most of you can agree with this.  She is in my prayers.