Military Brat Story

We all need something to remember ourselves by. Maybe a book, a toy, a diary, but really…these days it’s all about the social networking and blogging. I’m not big on social networking and never have been. I never got a MySpace when it first started getting popular at school and now that Facebook is up in the charts, I still haven’t sign up for an account. (But ya, I confess, I signed up for Twitter, look around my page, it’s there somewhere) Some friends asked me why, I just answer, “I’m not that type of person.” But guess I’m the blogging/web page kind. That’s when I discovered WordPress. It’s interesting what you can find when you’re just messing around on Google.

So after sleeping on the idea of whether or not to make an account, I decided to do it. Why not, we all need something to remember it by later. So I signed up. Spend most of the morning going through profiles and putting through what I got written down on paper and ideas bouncing off my head.

Where to start is the question…well everything needs a start point so here goes:

If you read my short bio, you’d know that my name is Matt, I’m 18, I have spinal cord injury, I was born in Texas and I’m a military brat. I’ve thought about this for a long time and decided that this blog will majority about my life as a brat, what I have to go through when my Dad isn’t home and my relationship with my parents. (Forgive me if I go on my rant about my injury, I try not to let my bad days affect me)

So whenever I do rant, you’ll probably wonder what I’m talking about…well here’s a simple autobiography from me I guess.

I’m 18 and I couldn’t ask for anything different. My family is extremely awesome. I had the life I wanted as a kid, I was enjoying life, running around crazy like my friends and doing fearless things. But on September 25, 2006, my life changed. And later to know that I was given a second chance at life. And not that many people get the chance, either.

Now, I love football. I live and breathe football. Of course since I was born in Texas, my environment probably had something to do with it. I can still remember throwing football with Dad after dinner and out playing football with friends.

No doubt everyone in my school was dreaming of the big shot. Playing college ball then go pro was the ultimate dream for all of us. Some of us didn’t even care about school, as long as we got football, who cares about school work. Fortunately, I wasn’t one of them. (I say that now, it wasn’t like that back then, I hated my parents’ strict rules) My parents had the strict A rule. Bring As to my report card, I get a chance to bring my A game on the field. “Just be careful.” Mom would mention before every practice and game.

Guess I wasn’t careful enough. A bad position, bad place, bad tackle and I end up breaking my neck. Within seconds my ultimate dream turned into smoke and for the first time I was truly scared. Laying there on the field, looking at the trainers, my parents, coaches, teammates. I’ve never seen my Dad cry like that before, I’ve never seen that horror look on my coaches’ face before. I don’t think I’ve ever think I would be paralyzed for the rest of my life before. I didn’t want to live, I didn’t want this to be true. Me, broken neck, paralysis shouldn’t be in the same sentence. After a couple months, I finally realized…

Not that many people get that chance to live life differently. To see the world differently. My friends and teammates didn’t agree and even begged for me to hunt down the person responsible. Truth was, though I wanted to, it didn’t matter anymore. Someone gave me a chance, a new chance at life. That person, is God. Before I got out of rehab and did a bunch of physical therapy, I couldn’t even shake someone’s hand. I couldn’t hold a toothbrush or even lift my arms higher than my shoulders. Simple task like going to the bathroom and getting out of bed were impossible. But God gave me a second chance. He let me see the light and come back to deal with reality.

When I first got hurt, I’d dream of walking and waking up meant dealing with the idea of being paralyzed all over again. But now, I fall asleep dreaming as myself as I am and thank God for every moment I got.

So I’m passed the “pity me I’m in a wheelchair” stage and not shy to answer the questions that people- mostly strangers- ask me. If you got questions, ask. Don’t worry about offending me, I’m pass that. So ask whatever you want, no worries.

And you might find this video interesting, if you like it or find interest in it, the movie is call “Murderball”. It’s a pretty good documentary and I’d recommend you to go and watch it. The second video is the trailer to the documentary:

So ya…that’s small bits about me. The rest, well…check the blog.