Workin out the stress

My name is Brandon. I am a twenty-five-year-old man living in the great state of Texas, believe it or not I say that without sarcasm.

I was born with a disability called Spina Bifida which has required me to use a wheelchair my entire life. I had my first major operation when I was only hours old and to date I've had around twenty-four more. Growing up every summer I would spend in a hospital recovering from one surgery or another. In school I was in remedial classes as a result of my neurological problems. Most recently, five years ago I fell out of my wheelchair at school and broke my leg so severely I had three surgeries and I will have chronic pain for the rest of my life. Oh, and the pain has caused me to gain weight to obesity level.

Whine...Whine...Whine, right? The fact of the matter is that all the above problems do just plain suck. At the same time, everybody else across the world has problems that give them headaches, keep them up at night, and make them just want to check out and go live on an island somewhere. Most never make it to that island, instead they find a way to cope. to persevere.We as humans have a fight or flight instinct and if we're going to make it we damn well better choose to fight more often than not. Today I begin my fight, step by step and problem by problem

Working out the stress

Today I began my journey toward health and happiness. I began the day by eating a turkey sandwich and pretzels for lunch, before it would have been peanut butter and jelly with a mound of chips. You might be asking yourself, he began with lunch? Hey, I'm working on losing weight. I'll work on getting up before noon next. One problem at a time.

A while after lunch I bit the bullet and decided it was time to exercise. I searched my room for my weight-set. I found my dumb bells, picked them up, and examined them as if they were relics from a foreign country. Needless to say it had been a while since I'd worked out.I began going through the motions. At first it was difficult but it quickly became fun. I felt empowered. All I needed was a microphone to drop from the ceiling and I could have been a professional wrestler, kind of like The Rock on wheels. If only I had a Shake-Weight I could have at least pretended it was a microphone, but I didn't. It was probably best that I focused on my work-out anyway.I eagerly got through the rest of of my work-out, the first of many.

The rest of the day I looked forward to the future. It may take a while but eventually my inner underwear model will be revealed, I'll be wearing clothes though. I am now free of my glazed donut shackles, in time I will be free of my santa belly, and I will be down to only one chin.I'm going to make 2011 my year, no matter what stands in my way.