I do not accept

I don't think I will ever accept that I had a stroke. In fact I make an effort to not accept it.  I know some people say they only look forward and that they don't look back. I won’t do that.  Just like when I was tired of being a butcher I didn’t accept that.  I did something about it and got through school and became a Software Engineer.  In life acceptance to often is an excuse for stagnation, for doing nothing.

 

I wasn't the only one there before the thief in the night, my first stroke, slithered into my life.  So, so, so many people had helped me get to where I was in my life and helped me make my life what it had become.  Everybody from my wife, my kids, and all the rest of my family and friends to teachers, counselors and even those people I I disliked or didn’t have a lot in common with.  All were partly responsible for who I was.

 

For me to say, 'I accept what happened, the past is past and I'm only looking forward, never back' is a slap in the face to each and every one of those people that helped me become who I was before the thief came. It is like saying, 'thanks for the effort everybody, but oh well.  Any future is equally as good as the last or the next’.

 
Hey I'm doing great. I have ups and downs. Sometimes I don’t think I can take another day and sometimes everything goes smooth as silk.  I'm carving out a life for myself. I'm growing and continuing my life but my past is there. Without a past there is no present, no future. To simply look forward and try to build a future, disregarding your past, is like trying to grow a fruit tree for food that has not roots.  You will quickly go hungry.

 

My strokes are there and they stole a lot from me and everybody around me. I will search for the reason like a hungry dog searching for a scrap of food. During that search; my life will continue to grow.  It will become what I and the people who are once again here for me, make of it. But no, I will never stop asking why and sit back in a Zen like or contemplative ‘false peace’.  I won’t get philosophical and giggly about “I don’t look back, always forward”. To be honest I don’t think a human person is really even capable of doing that. I think it is a lie for someone to claim it.  The reason I stroked is out there and it is going to be pursued.  Along the way my new life will rise out of my past by not denying my past.