Living an Optimal Life

The other shoe did indeed drop, and it was so unexpected. I knew nothing about Lyme Disease, except that it came from a tick bite. I couldn't recall a tick, nor the bullseye bite mark associated with it. I felt a range of emotions ranging from horror, the image of a bacteria oozing into my bloodstream and infiltrating my nervous system, joints and heart, feeding on my insides... to feeling validated relief. I wasn't losing my mind! I wasn't overly sensitive or suffering psychosomatically. There was a legitimate reason I was suffering, and it was treatable. I'd spent my life seeking an answer. As I tried to determine when I was infected, I kept tracing symptoms further and further back, and all the pieces came together, like an invisible puzzle materializing into a clear landscape of my life's struggles. Lyme Disease. It was all connected. These physical and emotional quirks weren't normal. They weren't me. It was all Lyme's. The emotional pendulum swung

Then, came the smoke. Even the Bay Area was covered in a brown shroud of smoke and the chemicals of perished goods: our neighbors dreams and belongings. The air was toxic and unbreathable in Chico, but it was hazardous in the Bay Area as well. Hosting our custom mold educator from Louisiana a few days later, I led her to our next hospital appointment. We were instructing a series of CEU courses together for various groups of ATPs and therapists. My head felt like it was in a vise, and it went blank. I couldn't remember where to go, nor what department we were seeing. I felt my heart flutter, like a butterfly was trapped inside, and I thought I would faint, failing to gasp in enough air to support my muddled brain. She looked almost as confused as I felt.  "I don't remember," I said. "I think I'm having panic attack." Sweating profusely, I darted around the building until locating assistance. We were late enough for the anxiety to persist throughout the

I knew the week would be challenging, my most challenging yet. I'd crammed a variety of appointments, including group presentations and trainings throughout the Bay Area into a limited timeframe, accounting for inevitable traffic and unexpected customer requests. I now represented a handful of product lines and each hospital presentation covered different combinations of them. So my van was packed with it all... demo wheelchair, Smart Drive device, pressure mapper, custom molded simulator chair and bean bags, tools, pump, every variety of seat cushion, back support and accessory for every complexity of needs for a wheelchair user. I was overwhelmed, fighting physical fatigue and unexplained mental cloudiness. Determined to succeed and make the travel efforts count, I swallowed my usual handful of vitamins and immune boosting supplements, meditated away the fear, stretched the aching joints and hit the road, repeating positive mantras in my head. High vibrations, faith over fear.. &

So I changed the name of this blog. It used to be about a single, traveling sales-mom, fitness enthusiast and aspiring wellness coach. Now, it's about embracing reality and creating the best version of it, whatever your circumstances allow. Everything has changed in one year. The identity that once defined me, which motivated the frenzy-like productivity spawned from a survival mode I thought life's obstacle-ridden path required of me, ceased to be. Piece by piece, my identity was chipped away revealing a new entity, which first promised a better existence, then took a sharp, unexpected turn, leaving me asking, yet once again, "How did I get here?" And more importantly, "Who am I now?" First, I found my partner. He was the one who didn't love me in spite of my three boys and ridiculously consuming traveling sales job, but loved my boys and loved me through it. We understood each other in an unrivaled way and had so much in common, I was sure he was m

A travel job serves some useful functions. It's a path to new places, a way to avoid the confines of a cubicle and a home life social filter. It's amazed me how quickly loyal friends forget you exist once you give up your local gym membership for a franchised one with multi-city access. It's amazing how quickly friends assume you won't be coming to events, so they fail to try to invite you. Soon, your personal cell phone is as silent as a hotel room (with three stars or above). Then, a remarkable thing happened. Out of the dozen phone calls I made to "friends" following my last week long excursion east announcing my return to local society, only one person answered... my son. And we chatted for nearly an hour. And to be honest, he and his two brothers really were the friends I missed most. They always greet my return with wide arms waiting for hugs, eager to hear my stories and enthusiastic about sharing theirs. There is never judgement nor concern projected

The theory that life favors entropy was one of the lessons from high school biology that stuck with me. Entropy's definition is: gradual decline into disorder. All cellular life follows this pattern. We can't be blamed for perpetually orchestrating chaos in our lives, because we're wired for it. Every story has a conflict, an antagonist, or a challenge that must be overcome. We're consumed with growth and progress, consciously or not. I believe this is the underlying reason that nothing sticks in my life: jobs, relationships, foundational moral and religious beliefs. I'm designed to favor the dissolution of all I build. Right? Can we rewire these tendencies to desire peace and stability, a consistently predictable and solid set of life circumstances? Biology would disagree. We're to be torn down and rebuilt, time and time again, until we are left a malleable lump of insecurity. True to this theory, my life has been a continuous cycle of start a sales job, build