Discrepancies And Time Displacements

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog:www.youtube.com/watch?v=B06DfQXOHf8

There is a phenomenon that happens to all of us as we get older.  We discover that the giants of this world and the things that we perceived, when we were younger, to be larger than life were in fact of normal size or even a little on the small side. Remember the hamburger when you were seven that was of epic proportions, the one that you could never finish, and that has now reached legendary status? Present day? You can easily eat that exact same hamburger in two or three bites, during which you are contemplating ordering another. That huge dessert at that one famous restaurant you went to as a kid,  you know....the one that you would always brag about to all of your friends? You go back to that very restaurant years later only to discover that what you thought was the mega-sized ultimate chocolate dessert was really just a 2 ounce dish of ice cream off the kid's menu. This situation also happens in the realm of my Ataxia, only in reverse. As a kid there were things that I could easily do....things that have now grown to epic proportions. I could, with assurance, step off a four inch curb without the aid of some major mountain climbing equipment or the need for repelling rope. I could run up and down stairs, sometimes even taking two or three at a time, without the need to reassure myself that I have a life insurance policy in case the whole thing goes south on me.

There is, however, also a second way this whole time displacement, or size discrepancy thing works in my life. In 2012 I was let go from my full time job because of the advancement of my condition. The job was physically demanding on me and took a toll, but it kept me active and the concern became that I would degenerate faster if I didn't find a way to exercise my muscles and keep them engaged. Sitting around all day and watching television just wasn't going to cut it, even if I was repetitively lifting a fork from a plate of cake to my mouth, (I even tried a second piece of cake, but it still was not enough, if you can believe that)!  So, I decided to begin a walking routine and started out by walking a distance of 5 to 7 miles a day. That was just two summers ago, and currently I'm lucky to walk 3 miles a day.  Oh, I know that it's good that I'm still moving, but it really doesn't work very well to remember the good ol' days when really the good ol' days were just 2 years ago! The older I get and the longer I walk with Ataxia,(the pun  was intended), the shorter, it seems, become the spaces in the time displacements.

I have been faced with the reality of my physical limitations for several years now, and as odd or funny as this may seem, I still have moments when my mind will assess an obstacle or problem in front of me, such as a set of stairs, and thinks that it will be of no consequence. Probably 99.90 percent of the time I am fully aware of my stellar lack of any balance, but it's that .10 percent of my mind that just won't play nice. Just the other day Melissa and I were walking through a park that was surrounded by a golf course, and I found myself thinking that it wouldn't be such a difficult thing to fluidly swing a club again like I did when I was 17. In my fantasy world I could even see it.....the young kid hitting a beautiful shot straight down the fairway. After approximately 2 seconds the .10 percent of fantasy-brain was pushed aside by the other 99.90 percent of my thinking-in-the-real-world-brain, and I now clearly see the 51-year old man who would never make it to even hitting the ball because halfway through the swing he would lose his balance, do a new dance called the S.S.D, or Spastic Salsa Dance, and follow it up by throwing himself in a heap to the ground. Or there have been times when I will get the sudden impression that I can run, or at least jog slowly. I used to be a runner, it shouldn't be to hard, my leg muscles should remember this and know what to do, right? Uh, yeah, there like, "What's this thing called.....running? Nope, sorry, don't believe we've ever heard of it before or ever had the pleasure."

Some of you reading this will understand the phenomenon, or discrepancies that I write about, but I will attempt to describe it another way. About a year before I was officially diagnosed I was working at a large shop that made cabinet doors. I worked on a shaper and in a accident had about half an inch taken off my right middle finger. It was very strange, but my mind kept telling me to use my right hand like I had always done in the past. This was not going to work though because an important part of the finger was now gone. Never before had I realized or even thought about how important the tip of my finger was. I had been relying on it to feel, balance, and help grip things. Just a half inch! That's all, and now I had to re-train my brain to function without it. So it goes with balance, I never really stopped to consider all the things that were possible because of it, until it was gone.

So, it would seem that there will always be discrepancies and struggles with time displacement, but that just means that now I will have to always be on the lookout for new ways to approach life's little challenges.

This and all the pictures that have been a part of the blog, My Life-With Ataxia Along For The Ride have been taken by, and used with compliments, from Melissa Wolfer.

Christmas Statistics That Lead Us.......

It's that time of year again...a time for me to remember the fact that when it comes to sending out cards, that I am a very proficient slacker. This fact becomes abundantly crisper in focus the closer I approach the Holidays. The Christmas card for me has begun to resemble the daydreaming sequence that is seen in movies where the main character is lost in thought while driving at night. He or she will always have drifted into the opposite lane, and fail to notice the semi-truck headlights as they approach and quickly grow brighter and brighter. In my world, there is always a collision at the end of this scene. Mine is not a collision with another vehicle however, but with Christmas, right before I wake up from my fantasy-induced coma. Time seems to be moving so fast that often it seems like I have just rolled into bed with a belly full of Thanksgiving Turkey,and ALL the trimmings,and the next thing I know I am shaking cobwebs out of my head, and palming sleep from my eyes on Christmas morning.

I have noticed over the years that there are five different categories of people when it comes to the subject of the Christmas card.
#1. The Super Early Bird....This is the person who purchases several boxes of cards on sale right after the previous Christmas, and mails them out sometime between The Fourth Of July and Labor Day. On an intensity scale of 1 to 10, this would score about a 12.5,(the only way to gain a higher mark would be to fill out said cards on New Year's Eve, thinking this to be a totally sane way to welcome in the new year).
#2. The Early Bird....These are the people who use the sugar-rush brought on by the Halloween candy mania to motivate themselves to get all two hundred cards hand-written, sealed and addressed, stamped, and mailed just moments after their kids have returned from trick-or-treating. Both the first and second kind of person will also hand deliver cards the week before Thanksgiving. I know they mean well, but whenever I receive one of these cards, it is as if they are saying,"I'm sorry you haven't done your cards yet....poor dear....I wish there were more I could do for you, but you will just have to keep struggling along the best you can".
#3. The, Yeah I've Still Got Time....These people are typically more of the," Eventually I'll get to it", type of people, and I don't want to judge here, but tend also to be a little more balanced. They usually get their cards out within the first or second week of December, and the cards will always arrive to their intended destinations well before all the spiked eggnog is gone.
#4. The Motivated By Guilt....These people are typically very overwhelmed, have multiple fires burning at any one time, and they do not feel that they have any say about sending cards, because the guilt of receiving, and possibly not reciprocating, is just too heavy. There also may, or may not, be a little touch of the Grinch within. Usually it is at about the moment of decision to mail, or not to mail, that the person will hear their mother whispering in their ear about the shamefulness of doing nothing...."It is Christmas after all, and your friends went to so much effort and trouble to send you this nice card! Wouldn't you be embarrassed to NOT send cards?"
#5 The, What, I Missed It Again?....These are the people who will put on a good show, coming up with all sorts of reasons and excuses for their negligence,(shoot, I forgot to buy cards, envelopes, and stamps, again!), but who never really intended to send out ANY cards in the first place. And it very well may be because they have chosen to make other worthy things in their lives a priority. Or, it just simply might be that they are very lazy and struggle with procrastination.

photo taken by and courtesy of Melissa Wolfer

There are also four kinds of greetings that are sent out.
#1. The Card Only....This is a nice greeting card only, or a one sheet post card in an envelope. The idea here is that there is only one item being received. This method is simple, clean, and in many cases, totally sufficient.
#2.The Card AND Picture....This is a well thought out greeting card, which is also accompanied by a nice picture, usually a nice photo that was taken in the Fall when it was dry and there were a lot of nice colors. These kind of greetings take planning and forethought, and will potentially account for about half of the cards that are received.
#3. The Card AND Holiday Newsletter....Again, this is a nice card, but this time it is accompanied by a one to two page newsletter. This seems to be a rather popular choice, and also an opportunity to share with all your friends and loved ones just how many international vacations you went on, and usually a lot of this type is seen as well.
#4. The Perfect Trifecta....This greeting wonder consists of the card, picture, AND a newsletter. Yes, it is a bit of an over-achievement, and although rare, does happen. During the few times that I have received this artful greeting I felt like Charlie Bucket finding the last golden ticket, as I ripped my way eagerly into the envelope.

Anyway, the day always seems to sneak up on me, but not this time.....oh no, not this time. I have included the Wolfer Christmas letter for all of you, my friends, who are reading this.

THIS year, I volunteered to write the Christmas letter ....just moments after Melissa told me that I was. Actually, we discussed what to do and looked at several options. We even thought about recycling last year's letter and sending it out again. I mean, come on.... be honest, would you really have noticed? I can just imagine what some of the people who will be reading this letter will be thinking. You all will be admonishing Melissa and I for ever thinking of doing something as bad, and clearly criminal, as sending out a year old Christmas letter and trying to pass it off as a new one. Well, I must confess, thereby hopefully saving Melissa from any of the controversy surrounding the potential Christmas letter fraud, and admit that I used the word, "we", rather liberally. It was only myself who came up with the letter-recycling idea.  But now that I know that you know what I was thinking, and know that it won't work, I will proceed with a normally, and somewhat brief, letter of our past year.

In January, Melissa and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by going to Maui, Hawaii for the first time. We loved it, at least I think we did, because we are having a hard time remembering if we actually went or just talked about it. This past year has gone by so fast that most things feel like they happened yesterday. Except for our 7-day vacation. It seems like a distant memory that lies right on the edge of consciousness, but that remains elusive. Thankfully Melissa took a lot of pictures that we can remind ourselves with. A return trip is most definitely called for.

We are in that time of life when there is a movement by our children to begin to abandon us....uh, I mean...stretch themselves and be on their own. The time seems to have come way too quickly, but Melissa and I are excited to see what the future has in store for them:

Kameron moved into an apartment with a friend from High School. He very successfully finished 2 years at Chemeketa, a community College in Salem Oregon, for which he had received a scholarship, and after taking 1 year off, decided to take classes at Western Oregon University. He is determined to not incur debt, and to move slowly by only taking at any one time what he can immediately pay for. He is also working hard at the same time and his Mother and I are very proud to see the kind of man that he is becoming. This year he turned 22.

Megan also started out at Chemeketa after also having received a scholarship. She spent her 1st year taking prerequisites, and then stumbled into what she hopes to be a promising career. She is heavily involved in ASL,(American Sign Language), and transferred to Western Oregon University half way through her sophomore year, is currently in her 3rd year, living in the dorms, and enjoying her time there and doing very well. She continues to work at her job at the Woodburn Outlet Mall one weekend a month so that she keep her standing there which will insure a full-time job in the summer. She stays with us, much to our enjoyment, on those weekends but returns to school in time for Monday classes. She is very active, and her Mother and I are very pleased to see the direction that she has clearly chosen. This year she turned 20.

And then there's Jessica who will be turning 18 in just a few months. She is a High School Senior, and has recently become our favorite teenager. From an early age Jessica established herself as the family entertainer and keeps us laughing with her various antics, impressions, and song parodies. She was chosen by the teachers and faculty at the school she attends to be in a small group of students from her class who will be in the Doernbecher Pageant. It is a annual event that raises money for the Children's Hospital, located in Portland Oregon. Gervais High School is one of the leading schools in Oregon for giving financially to this Institution, and Melissa and I are very excited for her as this is a great opportunity and a very fulfilling experience.

Well, that wraps it up from the Wolfer household, except to say that we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all have a very warm, an enjoyable Holiday Season, and that you have all been good this last year!