MONDAY, MONDAY…la la
I love Mondays, to me, it’s the most beautiful day of the week. You guys DO agree with me, right? Sometimes I hear people say that Mondays are bad; first work day of the week, got four(or five) more to go, don’t like my job, I have to do this on Tuesday, and that on Wednesday…..OK! OK!. How I know this is cliche, but it could be worse. For every “bad” day, there will always be a positive to that day. Ok, on Mondays, that “bad” day, you woke up. How great is that? This past week, a 32 year old, with a wife, and a child, went to bed, and never woke up. What does the wife tell the child, and tell herself? Do they really understand what life really means? What I think we have to look at, and absolutely believe, is that we don’t really have a life, we’re just on borrowed time. This comment, by the way, is a positive one. A lot of times, actually most of the times, no one really looks at enjoying their day, their moment, until the are faced with a life threatening situation. It could be 99 years, 70 years, 32 years, or 3 years. None of us know what our “life time” is, but what I do know is, how much I have enjoyed my life so far. It’s has been amazing. I went to school for an engineering degree, and have been in the fitness industry for 30 years! Funny how life can make a detour. I actually came out here to Los Angeles in 1981 to work at Hughes Aircraft, a huge corporation. My first year was so great; from a smaller town in Illinois, (Peoria), to L.A.! What kid wouldn’t feel like a king, to be in LA in the 80’s? Oh, my my, guess what; I started to “hate” Mondays. I started to realize that I wasn’t a corporate kinda guy. Didn’t know what to do, and stayed with that job for 4 years. Then I quit. End of the road, knew I HAD to think of something, so I quit, just like that. Since my background was always fitness and sports, why not try something in a field that was just starting to BOOM! Life is great. All of what I just mentioned lead into something that happened 30 years later.
All of the fitness that surrounded me, consumed me, made my training, (for myself), much more fascinating. How could I pass things on to clients, if I had not done it myself? I tried to go to different styles of trying, from endurance, to strength, to stability, to balance. I could show a lot of pride in what I thought back then: (you see, I knew EVERYTHING)! I could stay so in tune with my body, from the neck on down. Ooops, I forgot about the head part, you know, that tiny little particle on top of your shoulders. When something didn’t feel right, I knew I could fix it, because….I KNEW EVERYTHING. Except the head. Turns out, I didn’t have it 100% upstairs, but I STILL didn’t know how to deal with it. Certainly, an exam would tell me, but guess who didn’t do that: I mean, with all of the work of taking care of me,(body only), I never thought of having an exam. Never entered my mind, but at that time, there’s a lot that didn’t enter my mind, simply because I got to the point where I couldn’t process information. I was told this by many, many people afterwards. That’s just how life moves, and sometimes people, (me), at that time, didn’t get it. Until that time, and I’m speaking about 6 years ago, I’d heard a zillion times, people are in your life when they’re supposed to be; whether it’s all of your life, 10 years, 6 months, whatever, they are there when they are supposed to be. So here’s a cute story, I had been dating this gal for about 5 months, she saw symptoms in me, and she’s the one who took me to the hospital. By the way, she had communicated with her uncle, who was a doctor at UCLA, described what had just happened, (on the phone to him), and he told her to get me to the hospital NOW, I might be having a stroke. No stroke, BUT a brain tumor, about 8 centimeters, the size of a baseball. Aside from the story of my life here, this gal and I went our own ways shortly after that, but she was there when I needed her there, We are still great friends, how could I not be; good chance I wouldn’t typing this if she hadn’t been in my life?
Several things have gone on since then, writing a book about my “little” story, and how my training in the past has helped me re-train myself back into a physical being. It was hard to even walk after the first surgery; I had to think back on injury rehab, for myself, and it worked! I started out a corporate guy, and went to something that I liked, and had to use what I learned years later. That’s my Monday. What training can do for all of us, to prepare us for things that we never thought might happen to us. I still love fitness, possibility more than I ever have, because of the effects it had on my after-surgery physical response. That’s why I love Mondays, also. To me, it’s the start of a new week, a new day, a new moment. I see things a it different now, and trust me, I don’t judge anyone who doesn’t see it my way. Just let me tell you what I’ve seen, and observed, in my world, today. That’s why I volunteer a number of hours at the UCLA RONALD REAGAN HOSPITAL. I never want to forget the “pain” that I went through; that’s why I speak to patients on the 6th floor, the floor that houses people that had neurological surgeries. They hear my story, and that helps them speak of their situations. It seems that a lot of people haven’t had the information about support groups, or support people in their lives, they sometimes they think “they’ve never experienced this”. I can say I have, this is what I am, and this is who I am, trust me. How others see you is not important, how you see yourself means everything. Trust that, trust that you are everything, who isn’t? Really, just tell me, who isn’t something, everything? We all are, and to tell you the truth, I actually think that today, I feel special, I have faith, trust, and a lot of hope. That’s why I love Monday’s!!! (and it’s Friday!)…
Remember to persevere under your “bad” days, and to know that you are special, because YOU ARE!!! Monday, Monday…..
Do you remember who sang the the song, (of the title)?
