High School Basketball & Backyard Moles

Some of life's most important lessons come from unexpected experiences. I learned some valuable insights from high school basketball and backyard moles.

My high school sponsored a girl’s basketball team, the Eagles. I played forward. An inspirational mentor, our coach was a former women’s center for Kentucky University. She wasn’t concerned about winning or scores. She wanted us to learn basketball fundamentals, play as a team, reach our own personal potential, and have fun. Our team loved her and loved to play.

Other teams did not have the privilege to be coached by someone with the ethics and priorities of our coach. We played the Bulldogs. This team of girls was vicious, confrontational, and aggressive in a non-sportsmanship way. Cursing, deliberate fouling, and a mean spirit emanated from them. Bloodied scratches ran down my arm from a deliberate foul. The Bulldogs did not play by the rules, exhibited blatant defiance for the officials calling foul, and made the entire game an unpleasant ordeal to just finish.

*****

Upset, my dad entered the house yelling, “We’ve got a mole! He is destroying the yard!” In a relatively short period of time, this tiny blind creature had burrowed many underground tunnels, undermining the foundation of our backyard. Thinking I had a solid foothold; my foot would collapse with the undetected underground damage. Stumbling and tripping, I would lose balance. Working secretively, the unseen mole destroyed solid ground.

I learned some valuable insights from high school basketball and backyard moles.

1) Respect for rules.
2) When part of a group, play as a team.
3) Reach my personal potential.
4) Have fun.
5) Destruction can be swift from small hidden sources.
6) Underground can be underhanded.
7) When tripped, learn how to land.
8) Stand on solid ground.

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
~Thomas Carlyle~

Copyright © 2009

Recovering Support Group Addict

"The Internet is so big, so powerful and so pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life."
~Andrew Brown~

December, 1999. Our first computer. I could hear an angelic choir rejoice as the PC tower emerged from the Gateway box. Disabled with a rare neurological disorder, Internet Explorer became my Starship Enterprise. With warp speed, my keyboard transported me out of disability's isolation into an uncharted universe of the living.

Hovering in cyberspace was a small support community of individuals also diagnosed with SPS. Bonding with this obscure SPS colony, I shared experiences, laughter, tears, and encouragement with others.

As the years passed, Internet Explorer navigated several others to our close-knit group. The majority fit right in, expanding our community with further experiences, understanding, and friendship. Then the 'Cling-Ons' started to infiltrate...self-absorbed, angry, victimized, needy attention-seekers. Their forum volume of continual problem finding, with dismissal of solutions, darkened our once uplifting support group under a cloud of self-pitying rants of negativity.

Negativity created a quagmire of group depression and dissension. Struggling through the mucky rancor, I felt their negativity begin to ooze through my thoughts. For my emotional well-being, I took a hiatus from the group.

It was a jolt to realize how much I had limited myself through extensive support group interaction, my only social outlet. Addicted to daily logging in, I allowed the group's drama to consume my thoughts. I felt a personal responsibility to lift those drowning in the ooze of their own inflicted misery. I had stopped growing, stopped living.

During my leave, I dusted off my waylaid goals, finding unexpected success in some completed pursuits. Venturing out 'in spite of' my physical limitations, I rediscovered a social life, making friends and enjoying activities.

I rediscovered my original purpose for participating in a support group...to share relevant disability issues in a mutual outreach of friendship and hope. Back to a basic coping tool...balance. I log on once a day to read and respond. I do not own responsibility for those who choose to wallow in the muck of defeat, despair, or gloom at the expense of others or me. Encourage, not commiserate, is my support group motto.

My name is Debbie and I am a recovering support group addict.

"Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexations to the spirit..."
~Desiderata~



Copyright © 2009

Good Morning Vietnam!

"Life is a rollercoaster. Try to eat a light lunch."
~David A.Schmaltz~

"Good Morning Vietnam!" Opening my eyes, I greet myself with the same irreverent enthusiasm of Robin William's DJ role in a controversial war zone. Living with disability is waking every day to a personal war...my life under siege by a relentless neurological disorder.

Through various avenues, I communicate with others with my diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome. Shuffling to the computer, I mentally inventory my physical status for the day as I read from others. As I read, I envision a medevac helicopter bringing in the wounded, me or my comrades? The MASH theme song, Suicide Is Painless appropriately plays in my imagination.

Though feared, death is easy. Living is hard. Finding my own purpose, joy, happiness, fulfillment, and strength for the day, I work on having reserves to share with another...irreverent DJ humor to give a smile...a word of hope?

I envision a Vietnam Marine, dusty, scared, searching, homesick. Crouched in the dirt, this weary young soldier chews on a pencil eraser as he struggles to fill the glare of blank white paper with an uplifting letter for those he loves.

Nostalgia for my 'pre' diagnostic days fills me with longing as I search for life's meaning in the chaos of my disability. Staring at my monitor, I struggle for truthful words to inspire those I care about. Life is hard, but still worth living.

"As long as you live, keep learning how to live." ~Seneca~

Copyright © 2009

Have You Heard of Stiff-person Syndrome?
It's so rare it strikes fewer than one person in a million. Its sufferers find themselves bent in strange, painful postures. Read how it's diagnosed and treated.
Read More

The Bee-Attitudes

“Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.”

People are still people, disabled or not. In contemplating various outlooks on life, I named them the bee-attitudes.

May-bee. A noncommittal buzz lacking passion, dependability, or predictability. The may-bee flies aimlessly at whim without a sense of direction or purpose.

Wanna-bee. An envious stinger filled with grandiose illusions and lack of conviction. The wanna-bee is lost within the ambitions of self-centered pride.

From Romper Room:

Don't-bee. Making deliberate destructive choices or doing nothing...indifference.

Do-bee. Worker mindset. Creative, busy, active, exploring.

I learned about succeeding in life as a preschooler from Romper Room - "Bend and stretch, reach for the sky"...as a Do Bee.

Attitude is sometimes a struggle for me. I have my off days of may-bee, wanna-bee, and don't-bee. Flying with a bumblebee do-bee attitude, I want to reach for the sky.

Ironically, the meaning of my name, Debbie, is bee.

Copyright © 2009