Coping and Hoping

Most of the challenges I have met and overcome since my diagnosis have been cognitive challenges. I first had to acknowledge that I had Shizoaffective Disorder. Then I had to identify coping mechanisms and put in place strategies that would keep my symptoms at bay. Once I stabilized, I set out new, educational challenges for myself. I completed one masters program and am in the midst of receiving my second masters degree. I have been pleasantly surprised by what I have accomplished while dealing with my illness.

I have also fallen short of a challenge or two. When I was hired by the Chicago Sun-Times to cover high school sports, I felt like I was at the place I wanted to be. I saw myself moving up the ladder at the paper and truly wanted to spend the rest of my days as a sports reporter. I dreamed about some day being on my beloved Cubs’ beat and doing sports talk radio shows as the town’s Cubs’ authority. I worked hard during my first year plus there, but then things got rough.

It took over a year for my boss, the high school sports editor, to even know I existed, and when he finally learned my name, he found faults with everything I did. When I got a job right, he rarely if ever praised me. When something was amiss, on the other hand, even if it wasn’t my doing, he laid into me and he was relentless. He fired me and rehired me several times and didn’t even acknowledge my presence the rest of the time. My symptoms slowly returned due to all the stress I was experiencing at work. Soon it was clear that sportswriting at the Sun-Times wouldn’t be my life’s vocation. I quit the paper when the job became too unbearable.

I’m now taking on yet another academic challenge as I embark on a masters of Secondary Education. Though I don’t know if I will eventually overcome the challenge of being a high school teacher, I am willing to try my best and see where I end up.

Last weekend my fiance Jamie and I went to Seattle for a friend’s wedding. While in the majestic Pacific Northwest, I took on a different kind of challenge with my adventurous partner in crime, a physical one. On our first night in Seattle when the trip planner was trying to figure out how we would spend our second and last day there, she suggested that we go on a kayaking tour. I’d never been kayaking before, but how hard could a paddle down the coastline be? I said what the heck and told Jamie I would do it. Then she told me that it wasn’t a quick little excursion, but a seven mile odyssey through the Puget Sound. I almost choked. I didn’t want her to sense that I was one to back away from a daunting task so I kept my mouth shut.

I was nervous when we got to the water’s edge and our guide gave us a crash course in the do’s and don’ts of kayaking. We got into our little boat and started the treck. What followed was one of the most remarkable and memorable experiences I have ever encountered. Not more than two minutes into our journey we spotted a seal poke his snout out of the water. That sight in itself was our money’s worth right there. As we glided across the dark blue surface of the Sound, it was like coasting across a sheet of glass. The water was calm, the sun was shining and the surroundings were beautiful. We spotted a few jelly fish and a soaring bald eagle along the way.

The best part of the trip wasn’t seeing nature in its element, it wasn’t learning the history of West Seattle from Andy, our tour guide; it was the fact that I was able to meet a daunting challenge, one that I was reluctant face, head on; and I did it with Jamie, literally by my side. I felt like it was a microcosm of what lies ahead for us as we enter the sacred union of marriage. Challenges for us may be mental, like deciding how we want to raise our children, they might be physical, like actually raising our children, but we musn’t back down from any of them, even when they seem as daunting as a seven-mile kayak along the Puget Sound with no prior kayaking experience.