When a dream requires divine intervention...

Setting challenges is easy.  Creating dreams requires a little more work with lots of emotional attachment and sometimes divine intervention is required. 

I like creating dreams.  It is something I have done since I was a child.  Dreams have helped me escape from the reality of life at times and they have helped propel me into action.  Dreams inspire me, motivate me and make my heart and mind soar.

Challenges are logical, measurable and generally require planning in order to be achieved.  Challenges can be simple or difficult but the more difficult ones can either make you or break you.

Most challenges are achievable with hard work and determination.  Dreams can be lived, but some are destined to forever remain a dream.

You can have one dream or lots of dreams, or no dreams at all.  Some people never dream and only ever set themselves challenges.   There is no right or wrong, it is all about what works for you.

I only have one dream just now all other dreams have been gently wrapped in cotton wool and safely stored in the hippocampus within my mind for future retrieval.  

For now I am working on challenges.  These daily challenges are what get me up in the morning and continually deny my mind the self-pity that it craves.  Most are simple little challenges and when I achieve them my little mind demons are temporarily silenced.

But sometimes those little mind demons start shouting and it takes a greater effort to silence them.  To sit and listen to them is not an option.  I did that once before.  I listened to them and believed what they told me.  They made me become someone that I do not want to ever be again.  Thankfully I had a very special guardian angel that helped me kick the butts of those little demons and in doing so it taught me a very valuable lesson in life.  I learned how to manage those little demons and have never forgotten how important early recognition and action is. 

My action now is to set myself a physical challenge each day to silence the grumblings.  When I could run it was easy, just pop on my trainers and head out the door.  Not being able to run or even walk means that I have to be a little more creative with my challenges, and more planning is required.

Running in rain is fun, select the correct trainers and mud can be safely negotiated.  My wheelchair does not cope with wet or with mud.  Hands slip, wheels spin and forward movement is a tortuous affair.  Crutches are a little bit easier to manage in the rain, but more than a couple of minutes use is painful for my entire body and puts excessive strain on my right leg and hands. 

I have never been a fan of running on tarmac and have always chosen to run on trails or grass where possible.  The scenery is more inspiring and nature lives all along the trails, in the hedge grows and the fields around.  My creative mind comes alive when I run in the countryside, away from people and man made things.  I lose my worries, my fears and self-doubts and I dream.  I create amazing images and thoughts in my mind all with vibrant colour.  Most of my creations will forever remain locked in my mind, but some emerge into the real world and become dreams that I chase.

I can only work with my wheelchair on tarmac or very hard packed surfaces.  Places where people work or drive every day.  My exposure to wildlife is mostly limited to slugs, snails and wasps eating the fallen rotting apples on one section of track.  Yesterday I did come across a very little shrew, but the shrew was lying on its back and definitely not sleeping.

I am enjoying my daily wheelchair challenges.  From learning how to control it to getting better at powering it, each day has taught me something.  I have devised a little training plan and it is very rewarding to see and feel the improvements.  On day one I could only manage 20 minutes effort and had to stop several times.  Yesterday as part of a 95 minute adventure I managed to negotiate a 1.4km continuous ascent with only two little stops.  Both times I got really stroppy because the chair was pulling badly to one side as a result of a very awkward road camber.    

I have become more respectful of those that spend long times in a wheelchair.  Prior to my experience I had never imagined how difficult it is to power and control a wheelchair.  I have absolutely no idea how the sporting elite wheelchair users can cover the distances that they do and in the times that they do it.  I struggle to move faster than slow walking pace on a relatively flat paved or tarmac surface.

Having a wheelchair has given me mobility and freedom that I do not have with crutches, especially in the house.  I can prepare dinner, safely transport items around even prepare and manage husky dinners for four!

Challenges are good and rewarding when achieved.  But I cannot forget that one dream that I feel and breathe each every day.  I have known for over a decade that the day would one day come when I would no longer be able to run.   But I don’t want it to be now I am not ready.  I have too many dreams and that I want to live.
(all photos thanks to Ian J Berry who helps me live my dreams and achieve my challenges)