Fly Anyway: What It Means When Your Own Body Keeps Clipping Your Wings

There’s a strange kind of fatigue that settles in when your body becomes its own battlefield. It’s not the loud kind—the kind that storms in with alarms blaring. It’s quieter. Heavier. Like a weight that sits in your gut and refuses to move, a pressure that builds until even breathing feels like you’re negotiating with something inside you that doesn’t want to cooperate.

Lately, my stomach has been the ringleader of that chaos.

And brother… it has been beating the hell out of me.

People don’t talk enough about the kind of pain that sneaks up from the inside. It’s invisible. It’s silent. And it is relentless. For me, it’s this deep, grinding gut-ache that mixes constipation, nausea, and this sharp, twisting fullness that makes my whole body tense up like live wire. And because I’m a quadriplegic—spasticity joins the party every time something’s off internally.

Nothing like a locked-up body reacting to a locked-up gut.

When the stomach goes, everything goes.

And that’s the part people don’t always see.

They see the cardinal.
The color.
The resilience.
The symbolism.
The fight.

But they don’t see the days when the pain is so loud I feel like I’m drowning inside my own torso. They don’t see me trying to stretch into comfort I can’t physically reach. They don’t feel the way my muscles clamp down into stone, making even the smallest movement feel like I’m dragging myself through wet cement.

This isn’t just discomfort.
This isn’t just a “tummy issue.”
This is a whole-body shutdown.

A tiny internal problem becomes a full-scale lockdown.

And man… it steals from you.

It steals peace.
It steals rest.
It steals clarity.
It steals entire days you never get back.

I do everything I can. I adjust. I troubleshoot. I hydrate. I eat clean. I take the meds. I shift around solutions like a mechanic trying to keep an engine running on faith and duct tape.

But some days, no matter how hard I fight, the pain wins the morning before I even get a chance to compete.

And here’s the honest truth:
Those days wear on me.
They make me question my own endurance.
They make me feel like the world is moving while I’m stuck… painfully still.

Yet here I am.

Still writing.
Still showing up.
Still finding a way to keep my mind aimed upward.

Because pain doesn’t get the final word.

Not here.
Not in my story.
Not in the Caged Cardinal.

This body may ground me in ways I never asked for, but the soul in me?
The will in me?
The part of me that refuses to quit?

That part still catches wind.

Even on the days I can’t move the way I want…
Even on the days the nausea feels endless…
Even on the days when my gut feels like it’s full of cement and every bit of spasticity screams with it…

I remind myself:

Fly anyway.

Not with wings, but with grit.
Not with perfect days, but with honest ones.
Not by rising above everything, but by pushing through something.

This pain is real.
This struggle is real.
The frustration, the exhaustion, the feeling of being trapped in your own body—it’s all real.

But so is the fight.
So is the fire.
So is the stubborn hope that keeps me moving—inch by inch—toward a fuller life.

If you’re carrying a battle inside you right now… if your body isn’t cooperating… if you feel stuck, strained, or worn down by something no one else can see…

You’re not alone.

I’m right there with you.
Hurting.
Adjusting.
Trying again tomorrow.

And until this storm in my gut settles… until my body loosens its grip… until the pain gives me a few breaths of mercy…

I’ll keep choosing to rise in the only ways I can.

One thought at a time.
One moment at a time.
One stubborn, cardinal-red heartbeat at a time.

Fly anyway.

Because some days, that’s the bravest thing we can do.

Only as Capable as My Caregivers Allow Me to Be

There’s a kind of surrender that doesn’t come from weakness — it comes from being forced to face what can’t be changed, no matter how badly you want to fight it. I live every day knowing that my ability to move, to feel human, to simply exist in this world, depends entirely on the hands of others. Hands I don’t have. Choices I can’t make. Movements I can’t control. It’s a strange kind of captivity — being conscious, driven, creative, and still unable to reach out and do something as simple as scratch an itch or plug in a charger.

People like to tell me I’m strong. They say it like it’s meant to be a compliment — a badge of honor for surviving. But the truth is, strength doesn’t always feel noble. Sometimes it just feels like being trapped in a body that won’t cooperate while the rest of the world moves on, assuming that if I just tried harder, thought more positively, or prayed a little longer, I could somehow change my reality.

What they don’t see is how fragile independence becomes when it depends on other people showing up — not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and with genuine understanding. I am only as capable as my caregivers allow me to be. That’s not self-pity; it’s the truth. And when that support falters — when care becomes mechanical or love grows impatient — everything crumbles.

It’s hard to keep explaining that I can’t just will my body into movement, or that no amount of grit can erase the nausea, the pain, the exhaustion that follows me day and night. It’s harder still when the ones closest to me stop listening, because accepting what I live with would mean facing their own discomfort.

There’s a quiet kind of giving up that happens — not of life, but of the illusion that I can control it. I’ve learned that acceptance isn’t peace; it’s just understanding the limits of your own power. I can’t fix what’s broken. I can only keep breathing, hoping someone finally sees that I’m not asking for sympathy — just understanding.

Image Description for Blog:
A pen and ink illustration with a soft watercolor background in maroon and tan tones, depicting a quadriplegic figure sitting in reflection. Surrounding them are faint, ghostlike hands — some helping, some pulling away — symbolizing the fragile balance of dependence and control. The words “I am only as capable as my caregivers allow me to be” are faintly blended into the watercolor, echoing the emotional weight of the piece.

October 19, 2025 – Realize

I used to think patience could fix anything. If I worked harder, explained clearer, sacrificed more, I could build the kind of love that holds under weather and time. I told her what it would take to marry me—what care means when your body doesn’t always listen and your mind has to carry the extra weight. I spelled it out in plain words. Give me patience. Give me honesty. Walk with me at my speed.

Instead, I met a wall of demands. Expectations that looked good in a caption but bled me dry in real life. I became a prop in a story aimed at likes and a family portrait—my care turned into content, my limits used as leverage. Love shouldn’t be a marketing plan. It shouldn’t be a scoreboard. It shouldn’t ask you to trade your dignity for applause.

I won’t dress it up: it almost broke me. The constant proving, the bargaining, the long nights replaying every conversation in my head. I felt hatred rising like a fever—toward myself for believing, toward her for pushing, toward a world that celebrates the picture and ignores the cost. I started to forget the man I was before the noise.

There’s a special cruelty in losing time you can’t replace. As a quadriplegic, time is a currency I count carefully. Energy too. I had a season when my health felt steady enough to reach for a “normal” life—whatever normal is—and I gave that season to a marriage that ate it up and asked for more. I stood my ground when I should have been held. I explained when I should have been understood. I was patient because I believed patience would be repaid. It wasn’t.

When I finally left, I felt hollow and free at the same time. Freedom is strange that way. You step out of the burning house and you smell like smoke for months. But you’re breathing. You’re alive.

Then I met someone new. No performance. No campaign. Just a person who listened, who understood the logistics and the spirit of my life. She checked every box I need to not only survive in a relationship but thrive: steady presence, soft hands, sturdy boundaries, humor when the day gets long. She saw the chair, the routines, the reality—and still leaned in.

And here’s the hard part: by then my health had slid. Not a cliff, more like quiet erosion. A little less sleep. A little more pain. Muscles that used to cooperate deciding they won’t today. I looked at this good woman and felt something I hate feeling—doubt. Not doubt in her. Doubt in me. Can I be the man she deserves when my body is asking for stricter terms? Can I hold her dreams and my daily battles at the same time without dropping them both?

Hemingway wrote with a knife. Clean lines. No hiding. So here’s the truth with the fat cut off: I want a life that doesn’t require me to bleed for it. I want love that is quiet and strong. I want mornings that begin with real kindness, not public relations. I want to be chosen without conditions. I want to choose without fear.

I also want my time back, and I can’t have it. That loss is a fact I have to live with. So I count what remains and make it matter.

What do you do after a realization like this? You make a list:

• No more explaining what basic compassion looks like.

• No more carrying two people’s pride.

• No more trading health for a temporary peace.

• No more pretending that abuse is a misunderstanding.

And then another list:

• Yes to love that moves at the speed of real life.

• Yes to boundaries spoken out loud.

• Yes to rest without apology.

• Yes to joy that doesn’t need an audience.

Some days I am angry. I let it pass through me like a storm over flat West Texas land. It comes hard and leaves fast. Some days I am grateful because I made it out. Most days I am both. That’s OK. Two things can be true. Healing is not a straight road; it’s a series of short honest steps.

If you’ve been used, if your care became someone else’s costume, hear me: you are not a prop. You are the main character in your own story. It’s not selfish to ask for love that doesn’t drown you. It’s stewardship. It’s survival. It’s hope with work boots on.

To the woman who fits: I see you. I see how you make the complicated simple. I see how you meet reality with tenderness and structure. I won’t promise what my body can’t sign for, but I will promise this—truth, presence, and a heart that refuses to quit. Some days that will look like laughter and late-night records spinning in the dark. Some days it will look like quiet routines and a hand resting on a hand. All of it honest. All of it ours.

I lost time. I found clarity. Both carve a person into something truer. Patience still matters, but not the kind that lets others drain you. Sacrifice still matters, but not the kind that erases you.

Passion. Pride. Perspective.

This is where I stand now: not begging to be understood, but inviting those who already understand. Not selling a story, but living one. And if love meets me here—steady, unspectacular, relentless—then that will be enough. If it doesn’t, I will still be enough.

The realization didn’t kill me. It called me back to myself.

May 28, 2019 The Weight of Being “Strong” — A Decade into the Fight

Unseen grief. Nerve pain. Autonomic dysreflexia. A decade later and the word “strong” still feels heavy.

I’ve been heard, but not always helped.

People see the chair, the drive, the humor — but rarely the quiet nights when your body feels foreign, when you’d trade every ounce of applause just to move your hand the way your mind remembers.

Being “strong” isn’t about bravery. It’s about showing up when no one else can carry what’s inside of you.

It’s about learning to live in a world built for speed while you move at the pace of patience.

And yet… there’s stubborn hope here.

Hope that honesty still has value in a world addicted to performance.

Hope that by telling my truth, someone else might feel a little less invisible.

August 4, 2025 – Still Laying There

Texas driveway nights under a mess of stars.

Quiet air. No need to impress anything.

I don’t miss walking — I miss laying.

That moment when the world stops needing you to prove anything.

Peace isn’t a product. It’s not curated or sold. It’s in the stillness that doesn’t care who’s watching.

And I’m learning that stillness is the loudest kind of freedom.

We live in an economy that monetizes silence, filters peace through branding, and calls it mindfulness.

But real peace? It’s lying under a Texas sky and realizing you don’t owe the night an explanation.

August 10, 2025 – Unspoken Patience

Humility carved by high-level injury.

Independence for me requires other people’s precision — a charger plugged in just right, a transfer done safely, a tone of voice that respects both need and dignity.

Patience isn’t optional. It’s survival.

And gratitude doesn’t erase the grief that comes with needing help.

There’s tension between being thankful and being tired of asking.

But there’s beauty in that tension — in learning that pride can bend without breaking, that asking doesn’t make you weak, and that patience isn’t passive. It’s endurance shaped like grace.

October 15, 2025 – The Exhaustion of Trying to Work

I’m so tired of not working.

I’ve done everything I can to show the value of what I bring — lived experience, education, resilience — only to be met with silence.

Every application feels like rolling a stone uphill with a broken lever.

Employers talk about inclusion, but rarely build it.

They don’t see that applying for a job as a quadriplegic takes four times the effort before the interview even starts.

We rely on support systems not as a choice, but as a bridge.

So when friends or family ask, “How’s the job search?” I have to swallow the same truth — I’m not lazy. I’m locked out.

And still, I keep trying.

Because persistence, for me, is a kind of protest.