My Evil Plan to Save the World.

Want to know how I plan to save the world?

 Well, I'm not. 

Not your world, anyway.  It's too late for that. It's beyond my scope.

The social and political climate of our society is reaching a boiling point. The oppressed dystopian reality that science fiction has warned us of for decades is becoming reality. 

There is a war being fought behind the scenes over you. 

What you can say, do, think, and where you can go are soon to be monitored, watched, and decided by a faceless panel of wealthy politicians. 

Control of your own body is even at stake. Control over who you are allowed to love is being revoked. Control over who you are and what you believe are soon to be taken from you.

Masses of people cling to an ancient mythologies and try to make relevant, informed decisions in modern society based on a 2,000 year old book, all of its antiquated prejudices included.

People kill each other, destroy our planet, spew hatred at one another, and build walls to separate us, all in the name of money and power.

This world is becoming a reality, and unless the collective masses rise up in revolt against the tyranny, it will continue to do so. 

But this is the state of OUR world. The world our parents and grandparents have left us. The world that we are slowly learning we need to break up with. A lot has changed for the better since I was born in late 1982, but a lot is still the same. 

One thing for sure, though, is that it will be a very different world for my daughters as well when they turn 18 in the year 2032. 

What social, economic and political issues will they be facing then? I am hopeful that we will be a more mature race by that time, having put all of the racial, religious, sexual and cultural prejudices behind. 

But how will I change the world for them? 

I may be disgruntled and dissident about my world that has been, but that won't help my daughters in their world to come.

My plan is to fill their heads with so much compassion, love, kindness and respect that no government, corporation or god will be able to leech it out of them. 

To light a fire of passion in them for all humans, so that any injustice to one is an injustice to all. A passion for the earth and it's bountiful yet fragile beauty.

I will instill in them the seeds of logic, of reasoning, and of truth.

They will hear the echoes of my voice in their ear saying:

No government, nor man or woman, nor any signed piece of legislature has control over you or your body. No company or product has any control of how you feel about yourself.

You decide who and what you are, no one else has the authority. 

We all depend on this "pale blue dot" floating in space, and everything we do should respect and nourish it, as it does us.

Fear has no power outside of that which you give it. Authority will always use fear to try to control you.

Dissent is ALWAYS better than blind obedience.  

Question everything and everyone. If something feels wrong or hurtful to someone, it is.

The people you love and receive love from are for your to choose, not anyone else's, regardless of their opinion. 

There are too many beautiful people in the world to worry about the ugly ones. They will only worry about themselves anyway.

You are pure love.

You are pure energy.

You are pure beauty in form.

You will not be overcome by hate. 

You have a voice, and if you choose, people will listen.

You are the most powerful force in the world.

I love you.

The Dragon Within.

I had an epiphany in self realization tonight, and it happened on the treadmill.

It had been a pretty good day, in all. I had the day off with my wife and my girls,  but in my mind there was a strange dark cloud.

This dark cloud is not unfamiliar to me.  

I've called it by many names over the years: Anger, Frustration, and even Defeat.

A co-worker and I used to call it The Dragon Within.

In high school, a doctor called it Attention Deficit Disorder.

And just a few years ago, a psychologist called it Depression.

But none of those names really seemed to fit it. It was more than that.

My father had it, and by the harrowing stories he's told me, his father had it too.

I've always just pushed it back down, suppressing it until I felt it subside. If I ignored it, it didn't exist.

Right?

Let's go back to the beginning.

Ever since elementary school, I remember always getting into trouble. Always acting out. In junior high it continued, and in high school it led to a doctor diagnosing me with ADD and putting me on a narcotic called Ritalin.

The Ritalin made me feel like there was a ball of tension in my chest and it came out expressed as anger. I hated it. I always felt as though the doctor who diagnosed me didn't even try to find out why I was acting the way I was.

This was at a time when kids all over the U.S. were being slapped with the same blanket diagnosis. ADD or ADHD seemed to be the easy way to tell parents that their kids needed expensive pharmaceuticals and nothing else would help.

Now, I'm not saying ADD and ADHD aren't real. I don't have the experience or knowledge to make that claim. What I do know, is that myself and countless other kids were being pumped full of amphetamines. And we hated it.

In high school I found something that changed my life. The skatepark.

I felt something when I went to the skatepark, and it was absolutely liberating. Here was a place I could go and exert as much energy as I had to exert. It was a place I could go when I was feeling the cloud build up inside. I spent every waking moment that I wasn't in school skating.  It was such an outlet for me that I kept it up ever since.

Later, in my twenties, I found cycling. First it was fixed gear road bikes for several years, which evolved into mountain biking. As long as I was on the bike I was happy. Hustling as fast and as far as my legs would take me, I was free. The dragon never reared it's ugly head.

Then, just after I turned 30, we had our twin girls, Parker and Zoe. The free time all but disappeared, and I would go months without riding, skating, or running.

Having kids is hard. Having TWO AT ONCE was insane. The amount of joy and beauty was matched only by the stress and exhaustion. Stress from lack of sleep. Exhaustion from working 2-3 jobs at once, then coming home to a brand new challenge. Being a new parent felt at times overwhelming.

 The clouds began to gather.

I want to make one thing abundantly clear here: My wife and daughters are the BEST things that have ever happened to me. My heart is filled with so much love and joy having them in my life. Every new day I am awed by how much my daughters are growing and learning, and my wife amazes me with her seemingly unending patience, love and support.

So why do I feel angry? Why do I feel like the weight of the world is grinding me into an emotional mess? My life is filled with so much love and no shortage of support. For the last few years it has baffled me that I can have so much but feel so down all the time.

Last night I realized why.

I got on the treadmill after more than a year off of running, and I couldn't stop. I ran for an hour straight, all out. It was like a release valve had just opened up and all of the tension was able to escape. It was a feeling I don't get very often these days, so I almost forgot how cathartic it was. As I was running, I came to the realization that all of my acting out as a child, all of my grumpiness and my "Attention Deficit" was all stemmed from an accumulation of energy to the boiling point.  It became clear to me why I loved skating so much when I was younger, and why I loved physical exertion in general. It was a pressure release that saved me from exploding.  I may never have put the pieces together before, but I realized last night just how necessary that was for me.

Physical exertion is a necessity, not just for me, but for a lot of people. Countless articles will tell you how exercise helps release endorphins and dopamine, causing a reduction in stress, anxiety and depression.  Too many people (including myself at times) turn to alcohol or drugs try and quell the stresses of life, only to find the hole still there. From now on, the only drugs I need can be found within my own brain. And now I know how to unlock them.

I can't help but feeling that all my younger self needed was an outlet. I didn't need drugs or booze. I found them, and they led me to darker places. I didn't need counselors or even a shrink later on. What I needed was that pressure release.

I've always known, somehow, that there was a simple solution. but I could never quite put my finger on it. I never realized just how important that outlet was.

Now, whenever I feel that pressure beginning to build and the clouds start to gather, I know how to clear the skies.

How much do you need to be happy?

I mean, really? 

Take a physical inventory of your life and the objects you own. How many items do you need for survival? How many contribute to your quality of life and happiness?  How many things have you been holding on to for years, and haven't seen in months? 

The answer to this question will be different for everyone who asks it.

Some will find that having collections of books gives a feeling of fulfillment. To some, display shelves stocked with antique bric-a-brac brings joy to look at. Maybe you have a closet filled to the brim and overflowing because you feel that looking good is feeling good. How about boxes of knick knacks that give you a feeling of nostalgia when you rifle through the contents?
I am not saying any of these are bad. Don't panic, I'm not going to tell you to get rid of all of your stuff. I'm right in there with you!
Shelves of books I have already read or never will? Check.

This is our bookshelf. And we've already gotten rid of quite a few!

Stacks of records and CD's, many of which I own because of one single? Got 'em.

Oh CD jewel cases, the bane of any minimalist's existence!

How about DVDs? Over 400 of them last I counted.

Our DVD's are stored in this dresser, plus a few Tupperware tubs and boxes. 

I've got boxes of holiday decorations, toys and collectibles from my childhood, backpacks, and other miscellaneous debris. 
As we begin to talk about what sort of lifestyle we want to lead, we are ever so gradually starting to see that most of these items are completely unnecessary.

 I have enjoyed all of our things. We spent our hard earned money on them because they have brought us joy at one time. 

 But perhaps the seasons have changed. Our fondness for having these material posessions is waning. I cringe at the thought of having to pack all of this up one day to move, only to put it away out of sight for another 3 years.

I'll say it again, this isn't a "throw all your meaningless junk away" post. There are some things that really do add to our experience. Book and records, for instance.

 To me, listening to an album on vinyl is an immersive and interactive experience, and it enriches our appreciation for music. 

Reading a physical book is much more satisfying than any e-reader. Many of these items will travel with us wherever we go, although our collections will be much more condensed.
No one needs that much Herb Alpert, anyway.
Our end goal is to downsize and minimize our posessions to what actually contributes to our quality of life.
Some things make it easy to get rid of. Take CDs and DVDs for example.

 Steaming media has become pretty much all-encompassing, so that you can pretty much watch any movie or listen to any album you want, whenever you want it, between Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, HBO Go, etc.
So here's our homework:
Go through your house. Search the endless nooks and crannies, boxes, shelves and storage areas. Be hard on yourself. Take note of the layer of dust on each box, book and shelf, and ask yourself what you truly need to be happy.  If you haven't looked at it or used it in the last 6 months to a year, chances are you don't need it.

Tough Choices

For years, Jen and I have talked about moving out of our home state of Arizona. 
Talked about it. We had a lot of pros and a lot of cons on our list, making it difficult to ever truly commit to picking everything up and transplant ourselves in a strange new place. And now with our year and a half old twin daughters, the decision became even more difficult.

The pros for leaving Arizona were plenty. We wanted to live somewhere cooler. Somewhere closer to the mountains, forests, and wilderness. Somewhere less populated. Somewhere the education of our daughters is a priority, not a last topic in a state's budget plan. Somewhere better for raising a family than the sprawling, inhospitable desert. We wanted green. We wanted a breath of fresh air after years of dust. 

The cons: Leaving family.
That was it. Just one con. 
But when you have kids, it's a huge one. Most of my family are here; my parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc...these people have supported me in anything I've ever wanted to do. They taught me everything I know about how to be decent and honest. I want them to be a big part of my daughter's lives. 
Jen's parents have wanted to leave the valley for quite some time. They actually managed to. For a brief while they lived in Durango, until we announced that we were having twins. 

Our red letter day was an afternoon in June when Zoe decided run out to the mailbox in our driveway. Barefoot. In less than 10 seconds, she had obtained 2nd degree burns over much of her feet just from the concrete driveway. 

That was what did it. Holding Zoe in the burn unit ER, we decided that we needed to get out of the heat. Kids should be able to enjoy being outside, not have to hide from it for 6 months. 

Once we finally came to a decision to move out of state, the next question was obvious: Where?

We took a long, honest look at ourselves and tried to pin down what was truly important to us.   

What makes our hearts sing?

What we ultimately decided (and agreed on quite strongly), was that it was US. We want nothing more than to be together. As a couple, and as a family. 

See, Jen and I have always been better together. For the better part of the last decade, we worked together at a small chain grocery store. We worked the same days and hours so we could carpool. We had the same lunch breaks, the same days off. We were together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we loved it. We get along better and communicate better when we are together. I don't know of many other couples that could do that, or that would even want to.

We also loved being outside, especially if it happened to be miles and miles away from the things of man. 

I grew up camping and fishing, roaming around the desert with my dad, and feeling most connected when I'm in the sun under an open sky.

Jen was raised a backpacker and hiker with a great love for the outdoors and the desire to seek solitude and beauty in them. I've seen this girl take on trails and conditions some of my guy friends wouldn't go near. And she did it all without complaint, but with eagerness.

So, we've decided to move. The "where" is as of yet undetermined. We have an idea, but no spoilers yet. 

The next question was, "What kind of lifestyle do we want to live, now that we are starting from scratch?" 

What kind of story do we want to tell our little girls? 

Jen and I are both admittedly very apolitical. We'd rather stay out of the messy affairs of our government. We are very interested, however, in being decent human beings. We like to support individuals who look out for humanity as a whole, and who realize the frailty of our only home out here in space. 

We want our message to our daughters to be one of love, not of fear. 

One of conservation rather than commercialism. 

A message that relationships and experiences are more important than a portfolio. 

We want to show them some the most beautiful places on earth. We want to teach them the importance of preserving and protecting this beautiful Earth. 

And we're starting to realize that the way to do all of these things is by simplifying our life. We are realizing that we don't need near as much as we think we do to survive, and that the majority of our "stuff" is what is weighing us down. 

It's going to be a journey, that's for sure. We have a long way to go, and we'll bring you along with us as we learn to live more simply and to love more greatly.

Flagstaff

Flagstaff.

Well, hello again! It's been a while. I plan on posting much more frequently from here on out. I have a lot of exciting things to talk about, so keep on the lookout for new posts. 

Last Tuesday was a pretty rough day. I had a tough phone call that Monday, and work in the afternoon seemed to drag on and on. That is, until I received one of the best texts I've gotten in a while. It was from my wife Jen and it read: 

A hike! Jen always knows how to get me out of a funk. I'm sure my face lit up and I had an ear to ear grin on my face. Anytime I have a hike to look forward to, everything else seems not so bad. 

So Thursday morning, we ditched out of swim class and loaded up the car for a day trip. The sky was gray and ominous and beautiful. Perfect for an escape from the arid 106 degree heat.

Flagstaff is home to one of our favorite breakfast and coffee spots. We make an effort to get up there early just to have coffee and a bite at Macy's European Coffee House. (the granola with yogurt and the vegan waffles are fantastic.)

Satiated and reawakened by the coffee, we headed up the hill towards Snowbowl until we reached our trailhead. 

The Veit Springs Trail in the Lamar Haines Memorial Wildlife Area is an easily ambling 1.5 mile walk in the beautiful woods above Flagstaff. It tilts and rolls softly as you meander through fields of ferns and flowers, all under the canopy of Quaking Aspens, Douglas Firs and Ponderosa Pine. 

Not far from the start, the trail cuts east and makes a bee-line to the Indian Springs. Here lies the now dilapidated ruins of Ludwig Veit's 160 sq/ft cabin. Old Lud had good taste in location. Indian Spring, middle Spring and Canadian Spring are all within pretty close proximity. You can also catch some Petroglyphs and Pictographs on the rock walls near the cabin.

Zoe at one of the springs.

Zoe and Parker loved the hike! They seem to genuinely love being outside, exploring every leaf and stick on the ground, inspecting every flower that pokes itself out into the trail right at eye level. 

Always take time to smell the flowers.

Zoe and Parker say hello to a friend we found on the trail!

The trek proved exciting yet exhausting for the girls, and we ended up carrying their limp, sleeping bodies the rest of the way to the car. It's amazing how much heavier they are when they're sleeping!

Back at the trailhead, it was lunch time! Well, for most of us.

Days like this remind me of not only how lucky I am, but how important it is to get outside and experience the outdoors. I am always happier when I am outside, and even a quick trip like this one does a great deal to refresh and recharge me. 

A Bit of Background...

This is an article I wrote for Twiniversity.com. Our girls were lucky enough to be featured as their "Twines of the Month" on their blog when they were 6 months old. This is how our story starts:

The Pregnancy

My wife Jennifer and I found out we were pregnant about 5 weeks after our 7th wedding anniversary. We were so excited to see the positive pregnancy test that we immediately went into baby mode, trying to imagine what sex it was going to be, what the baby would be like, what would life be like after almost 10 years of just being us? It was so hard to picture a third member of our family, but it was the best news we had ever received. When we went in for the 8 week ultrasound appointment, we almost held our breath as the tech began looking around for our baby’s heartbeat. “Well, you’re definitely pregnant,” she said. “ But there’s not one, but TWO heartbeats!” A short pause. “Wait…no…are you ready? There’s another one. Yep, there it is. You are pregnant with triplets.”  All that we could do was laugh. We looked at each other with blank, indefinable expressions as we digested what the woman had just told us. She looked at us and grinned, obviously enjoying the dumbfounded looks on our face and our inability to form words or sentences.  She must have announced it to every member of the staff, because as we walked out of the office, they were all whispering and smiling at us as if we had just won the lottery.

Because we were now expecting triplets, it was considered a “high risk pregnancy,” and the OB/GYN that we were seeing had to refer us to a group of specialty perinatal doctors here in town. They took over and found that Babies A and B were Monoamniotic-Monochorionic, often referred to as Mono-Mono, or MoMo twins. What that means is that they share not only an amniotic sac, but also the same placenta. This putthem at a much higher risk, since it is incredibly easy for their two umbilical cords to become tangled, knotted, and cut off circulation to one or both babies. The doctor informed us that this type of pregnancy almost always required an extensive, hospitalized bed rest for the mother, for continuous monitoring and to decrease the risk of an entanglement.  We also found out that while Baby C had its own sac and placenta, it was almost completely covered by a condition called Hydrops Fetalis, which is massive fluid buildup in the tissues of the fetus. Baby C did not make it past 12 weeks.

So there we are, in the last 4 weeks or so, we went from finding out that we were pregnant with triplets, then finding out it was a severely high risk pregnancy, then losing one of the babies. This pregnancy was already proving to be quite the roller coaster.

Then, at 20 weeks, we were hit again when another ultrasound tech saw something that didn’t look quite right on Twin B, now named Zoë’s heart.  Zoë had a rare but severe heart defect called Transposition of the Great Arteries. This means that the position of the two major arteries of her heart, the Pulmonary Artery and the Aorta, were switched, and blood did not flow through her body the way it was supposed to.  Zoë’s heart pumped oxygen rich blood back to the lungs instead of out to the body, and oxygen poor blood never made it to the lungs before being pumped back to the body.  Zoë would need a major open heart surgery after birth to cut each artery, redirect them to pump in the correct directions, and sew them back together. At the same appointment, a doctor we hadn’t seen before spilled the news that we were having girls. This was bittersweet, since we had planned on waiting until birth to find out the sex.

At 26 weeks into the pregnancy, Jennifer checked into the hospital, where she would remain on continuous fetal monitoring day and night, until our babies were born. I worked during the day, went home to feed our dog and cats, then drive to the hospital to spend the night with my wife. Every day.

The goal was to make it to 34 weeks, which was typical for Mono-Mono pregnancies, hoping the babies didn’t have any heart decelerations that would indicate a pinch in the umbilical cord. We went ahead and scheduled the C-section for June 20th. The girls, however, decided they were ready to meet us at 33 ½ weeks.

The Birth

Jennifer called me at work at 7:30 a.m. on January 16th, told me that her water had broke, and it was go time! I rushed downtown to the hospital and made it just as they were getting ready to wheel her to the OR.  As they whisked her into the cold birthing room, I threw on a gown and received instructions on what to do. They brought me in and I sat by my wife’s head. I couldn’t help but peek over the curtain and watch as the surgeon pulled two of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen from the womb of the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Then, in a flash, the babies were whisked off to two separate incubators. Parker would stay here, in the NICU at Good Samaritan, while Zoë would be transferred to Phoenix Children’s Hospital a few miles away. Phoenix Children’s was the only hospital nearby that had a cardiac specific NICU, or CVICU.

Two Sisters, Two Hospitals

Parker was quite healthy when she was born. She weighed 5 lbs, 9 oz. She would have to stay at Good Samaritan until she gained some weight and learned how to eat from a bottle. This proved to be no easy task for a preemie twin, and she stayed in the NICU for about a month and a half while Jen and I bounced back and forth between home and the two hospitals to see each of our daughters. Zoë was 4 lbs 15 oz when she was born, was intubated with a breathing tube right away, given a central IV line, and had to wait until she gained a couple more pounds before she would have her heart surgery.

We would typically spend the first half of the day with Zoë at Phoenix Children’s to hear the doctors’ rounds and get updates, then go to Good Samaritan to spend the rest of the day with Parker, until we had to go home for the night. This went on for about 5 weeks or so, until Parker came home with us.  The hospital wouldn’t let children who weren’t patients onto the hospital floor due to flu precautions, so we were lucky that our families lived close by to help watch Parker while we would visit Zoë.

Zoë had a balloon septostomy procedure done to open a temporary hole in the wall of her heart so that oxygenated blood could mix with the de-oxygenated blood, and be carried to her body.  This would allow her to make it until the real surgery, but a bout of NEC, or Necrotizing Enterocolitis ended up pushing the operation back even further.  Zoë had her heart surgery on February 19th. Our doc was touted as one of the best in the country, and one of the only ones in the state who could pull a procedure like this off. He lived up to his reputation, and the surgery was a success.

Meeting outside the womb for the first time.

Still reliant on a breathing tube, with drains, IVs, monitors and central lines, we weren’t able to hold our daughter for weeks. Actually, we had only held her a few times before the surgery, and now it was almost unbearable. Seeing our daughter in so much pain and not being able to console her was the most difficult thing we have ever done. The most contact we had was laying our hands on her head or the parts of her that weren’t bandaged or a mess of wires and tubes.  After the surgery, she suffered from a collapsed lung, requiring another surgery to repair it, and then two failed extubations (removal of the breathing tube) before she was finally able to breathe on her own. Seeing that tube come out was such a glorious moment, because it meant one step closer to having our baby girl at home with us.

I can’t really say how Zoë felt throughout all of this, but I do know that she seemed to always know when Jen and I were there with her. She seemed more calm and at ease when we were standing there beside her hospital crib, singing to her, playing her music, and telling her how much we loved her and couldn’t wait until she came home.

Flu restrictions lifted at the hospital, and we finally got permission to bring Parker in with us to see her sister for the first time since in the womb. We put Parker in the crib Zoë was in, and Parker instantly reached over to grab Zoë’s arm, though Zoë didn’t seem to know what to make of her sister at first.

Home At Last

Zoë finally came home with us almost 3 months after she was born, on April 10th. This was the happiest moment we had since finding out we were pregnant.

She still didn’t know how to eat by bottle, so she was sent home with us with an NG tube by which she received all of her nutrition and a slew of medications, which we are weaning off even now. She still has the NG tube, but she has been learning how to eat at an incredible pace. We have been making multiple weekly doctors visits, speech therapy for feeding, physical therapy, and she will have regular cardiologist visits for the majority of her life.

To see her now, nearing 6 months old, it is hard to believe she is the same frail little baby she was a few months ago. She is now healthy, happy, and home. When she lays with her sister they hold hands and snuggle, as if they don’t want to be apart (until nap time, then it can get ugly). She giggles and coos and makes all of the amazing faces we were never sure we would see. She’s even in swim lessons and loving it. As a family we have already been through more than most, and it has brought us closer to each other than we thought possible. Without each other, we never would have made it through any of it.