At the age of thirteen, I watched a parent die right in front of me. A decade later, I had no idea the other one would follow suit so brutally… or that I’d be wandering the world so vulnerably for as long, thereafter. Only recently has my neurological condition seen any reprieve, via medication, and after more than one near-death emergency hospitalization. The last two years haven’t just been difficult. They’ve been more life-threatening than years prior… and that’s even considering the other vehicular & home accidents there have been (… even those that weren’t my fault).

By the time I’d “summed up my formulation” (pessimistically) as that of being a walking time-bomb… I had already seen hospitalizations for illnesses as a child… then came the broken & damaged limbs, the stitches, and the “cardio” & “neuro” stays as an adult. As I aged, I began receiving more of the same types of health cares my elders were getting… via specialists & such. No one diagnosed me properly for years. It wasn’t until I took my first purchased car flying that I suddenly had a “condition.”

Sadistically, I’m almost glad that my real health issues didn’t kick-up until after high school. Hospital stays, throughout the absence of family and supportive friends, became more trying as I aged. Somehow, though they got off easy, I got to just stay alive, existing absolutely miserably about everything surrounding me… even those so-called “friends.” Psychologically, it was like trying to listen to the sounds of life… over the abrupt, intermittent interruptions of a jackhammer. The friends I gathered through my teenage years, in so few cases, held “true” to such a carelessly-deemed entitlement. Men became dishonest, women became desperate… and both were looking to make their own mistakes someone else’s consequence. When you’re inundated as much by mistakes of your own family, to start… also considering a “sudden mystery health condition”… it gets complex, to say the least. Regardless, my own mental fortitude has remained an enduring priority. During a life filled with surveillance of others “taking the low road,” I didn’t want to be anything like them… not even by way of my health.

By then, having been seen by some of the best neurologists & cardiologists on this side of the country… I began finding myself more alive on the inside, decades later, than I’d ever felt. I’d never thought that such experiences would reinvigorate my drive to persist like this, given all I’ve seen. At one point, fighting made me feel as though I’d hit my physical pinnacle. Hurting others physically gave my cognitive peace, somehow. Having been tortured because of my last name all throughout elementary school, plus what I went home to daily… now presenting sudden health issues, it also appealed to me as an effective “Plan A” to put into action, ASAMFP.

“Plan A” was simply to positively involve myself in, appreciate & experience, more, all as contributorily as possible. Suddenly, I don’t want to have to tell any “war stories” in advance. I’ll be there as supportively as possible, as my friends endure their own hardships in life… if they choose me to talk to. Experience doesn’t always need to be so voluntarily revealed. Sometimes, that experience needs time to “cool down” before it can be so comfortably revealed. Truth in experience comes from wholehearted genuineness. Sometimes, being that honest (in this day & age) comes back to bite you in the ass, one-trillionfold.

In my life, I’ve taken on physical challenges & succeeded. Despite a seemingly-genetic neurological malfunction, I’ve succeeded intellectually (at least enough to develop a website & rough-draft a book). Although I’ve seen medical visit, after condition-related injury, after long-term medical stays, I’ve persisted. Though I’m left mourning the loss of artists like Chris Cornell & Scott Weiland… I also wonder how much harder their lives really were than my own. Though “scarred,” I’m still here. I never thought I’d outlive them by so many years in my own life. I first saw Chris’s band take Guns & Roses’ opening stage in London on a pay-per-view. I listened to him for decades after, and even saw him live… though not enough times. When life begins for you, and they’re ushering you into funerals in your adolescence… death over the course of a short life means more in hindsight than it tends to “in-the-moment.”

It’s ironic. Many artists who produce mainstream music have become popular recently. They’ve done so because of what’s “angry,” or “violent” in their words.

Music I listened to growing up, as I expected it would become, is “old people’s music” now. Even with as recent as this music from my youth “feels,” it’s just not. As much as I hate to sound like my parents… I hear what’s on the radio these days & I do my best to ignore it. Curveball after curveball, turn after turn, the activities in life over its course will change… and you’ve got to be prepared for each route life’s road takes you down. If your own “route” is more expedient than others, lucky you. Be supportive of those who weren’t cut such a convenient break. Not everyone is born into wealth, or a happy family, or a nice neighborhood, or even by “prepared” parents. Empathy & alliance will always get you further than indifference & insolence.

Regardless of inconsequential factors, the influence that one person understanding another can have has changed lives. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Additionally, I’ve also seen other states, other countries & almost all the recording artists I’ve ever loved. In what I’d love to see become my “journey’s” home stretch, I married the wife I was meant for. Had she not been right where she was, when she was, none of this would’ve ever happened. I couldn’t have ever expected it.




“I’m not one to waste my time… searching for some silver lining…”

~Chris Cornell