I guess I'm grateful...sort of.

I've heard a few time that trials and tribulation make us grow and help us to develop skills and abilities that otherwise we might not have developed. This has never more sense to me than it did a few evenings ago after a friend of mine told me I give the best back massages in the world.

It made me think about how I gained that special ability. It brought me back to my younger years. The year two-thousand and three. It brought me back to a time of immense joy, but also a time of extreme trial.

The summer after I graduated (7 years ago) I moved to Gilroy, California to live with my bro Clint and his family for the summer. It was a very memorable summer, I have some great memories of hanging out with the boyz, board games, baseball, building a patio/walkway, the beach, and just having a grand old time.

But it also includes some memories that are equally as memorable, but for less enjoyable reasons. My bro is a physical therapist and he was able to set me up with a pretty sweet job as an aide at his clinic. I had no prior experience, but I got a lot of on the job training and quickly learned the ropes. For the most I really enjoyed my job, it was a pretty low stress, I met a lot of random people, I worked with my bro, and I learned a lot about a lot of things.

Unfortunately tho, my job wasn't all fun and games. I can't tell you how many times patients came in and I would be the one that had to give them a "lower back" massage or what I have like to call the "upper butt massage." Now that wouldn't be too bad if the majority of patients in a physical therapy office were young and attractive girls, but that is not the reality. In fact, the exact opposite is true, the majority of patients are old and overweight.

I want you to imagine giving a lower-back/upper-butt massage to a 300 pound man/woman in his/her 50's or 60's. Now close your eyes and imagine that person laying face down on the table with their shirt off and their rear-end exposed... don't think about it too long tho, cause I just threw up a little bit in my mouth doing that exact exercise. Now try and imagine yourself giving that person a massage. It's not a fun thing to imagine is it. You also need to take into account that these ain't no sissy "feel-good" massages, these are intense, deep-tissue massages. Meaning, that I often worked up a little bit of a sweat in order to be able to work the muscles under the layers of fat in order to do my job correctly. Now imagine giving 5 or 6 of those massages a day, 5 days a week

Luckily, this terrible time in my life brought some positive consequences into my life. I am now a very skillful and talented masseuse...so I guess I'm grateful for all those fat and old people with "lower back" problems. Your pain and my trial have come together to create in me a very useful skill. And for that, I thank you.

Moral of the story: Make lemonade out of life and enjoy it.

Thanks Clint, Kadie, and Boyz for everything you've done for me. Ya'll are a great example to me and how I want/need to live my life. I love you all a great deal.