Paging Dr. McDreamy.

It was getting closer to six in the evening, so we made our way out the overtly large glass doors that enclosed us from the world beyond it. The street was busy, with the sun still positioned clearly in the sky; It was summer.

After walking for roughly a mile, with a few stragglers behind us, we finally made it. Dad held open the door to the Cheesecake Factory as we all filed into the grand lobby. I'm not quite sure what it is about Cheesecake Factory, but time and time again I'd chosen it over even the finest of establishments. Maybe it's the attempt at a jungle temple-like theme. Maybe it's the mighty portions that even Michael Phelps (with his apparently large caloric intake) couldn't finish. Or maybe, just maybe, it's the dessert.

Brother habitually put in our name, exchanging it for a buzzer which would, well, buzz, when our table was ready. It was my last night before surgery, and if a large, two thousand calorie platter of chicken parmigiana wasn't something to clear my mind for the evening, then the caramel pecan turtle cheesecake surely would.

There was an escalator next to a large set of stairs that would lead us to the upper floor of the restaurant, where in which we needed to be.

As much as I enjoy escalators, I've always meant to avoid them, after all, I did have working legs and a little exercise never hurt. So immediately as we realized where we needed to go, the family split.

I turned to Ali and jokingly said, "I'm going all out - this is probably the last time I'll be able to do this," and began to sprint up the stairs. The pathway in front of me was clear, as majority of individuals going to and from the establishment had sided with the rest of my family. I looked over my right shoulder and saw my brother staring at me with competition in his eyes, and, of course, I couldn't resist. He began walking up the escalator as I was running up the stairs. I reached him in no time at all, and with one flight left to go, victory was stripped away from me.

I fell.

Not your average stumble, where you can still manage to play it off like it never happened - this was much more dramatic. Arms flailing, head bobbing, knees falling hard upon the stairs, I was nowhere near a Destiny Child's recovery, as seen here.

Seconds later, when I realize I had let out a moan and was stretched along the staircase, I began to help myself up as a host from above started to come to my aide.

"I'm okay, really, I'm fine," I said to the man who held out his hand. Luckily Ali had been walking up the stairs at a safe speed and came up behind me.

Laughing, she said, "This really is the last time you'll be able to do that."

I walked outside this morning to the rays I had once been so accustomed to. I reached up my opaque hand to shadow my eyes that seemed to be retracting as I stepped farther into the light. It was only ten o'clock, yet the center of the solar system had no remorse in reminding me of it's existence.

For roughly a month I've been stuck; Stuck in a bed, stuck in the dark, stuck with the fan rotating above me, rattling as it went. I haven't been able to run, I haven't been able to bend, I haven't been able to leave the oxymoronic comforts of my little dark chamber. I can't quite remember now the amount of pain I was in, but I'm reassured that it's for the best. In the beginning I couldn't think of anything but screaming, anything but crying to keep my mind off of what had happened to me. My entire spine would ache, from top to bottom, an ache that even I can't find the words to describe. The narcotics wouldn't come fast enough, yet even when they did the nausea was another battle of it's own. My body was fighting me, and I was fighting it.

After a day of outings (which were meant to keep my mind busy, I assumed), I felt tired and weak. I went to my room, layed in bed, and awaited the sun to fall so I could potentially escape the confinement I repeatedly found myself in, and not be blinded. Dinner came and I had the strong desire to swim.

A lot of times I get these ambitious thoughts, where in which I'd go ride my bike, or get out of bed without the log-roll maneuver, yet these were all thoughts that were just slightly out of reach. I'm feeling well enough that it seems even brushing my hair wouldn't cause an issue, but then I'm faced once again with reality: the knots in my unkempt mane make it that much more difficult to endure.

I went back into my room and opened up the top drawer of my dresser, retrieving an old bathing suit I'd left here years prior. In an uncoordinated fashion I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror. I had proper curves, my shoulders were align, and I still somehow had my four-pack. I couldn't help but let myself smile.

I hastily grabbed a towel out of the hallway cabinets and went outside to meet my competitor. This time is wasn't my brother - this time it was the water that lay before me, callously tempting me as it provided many memories of my earlier, more agile self.

I slowly eased myself down to the top step, then the lower, then the lower, then I stepped to the bottom. It felt good - it felt like I was somewhat back to normalcy and back to the place that had always meant the most. Mom called from the door, reminding me that I'm not supposed to swim yet, as Dad noted teasingly after her that butterfly was to be avoided.

I smirked, yet instantly wanted to try. I attempted to do the arm motions while standing in the shallow end, and realized mobility wasn't quite on my side yet. The rods in my back were stiff, along with my tight, tense muscles clenching at each minuscule movement made. I gave up the strokes, but just for today.

I ended my swim with some egg-beating, trying to hold out as long as I could until I began to hurt. As much as I'm dying to be one hundred percent, as much as I'm yearning to be able to do the things I used to, I'm learning to be patient, I'm reminding myself that I had major back surgery.

I just had major back surgery, and now I've treaded water. I smiled again.

The truth is, running up the stairs at Cheesecake Factory wasn't the last time I was going to do it. I might not have believed the notion a couple of weeks ago, but I'm determined to believe it now. It's not always going to be easy, and I'll surely have days of discontentment, but persistence has always been a prominent attribute that even nineteen screws and two rods can't take from me. Nor am I about to let my bed form a ravine due to my lack of a desire to move.

Things can always be worse, but things can always be better, too - it's just up to you to want to achieve them.

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Interpret With Ignorance, Not Malice.

I'm sitting in a room that once used to be mine. Completely unrecognizable to the prior, the dark walls and antique furniture stare at me as if I'm the foreign object, as if I'm the one that doesn't belong. The sun is out, incandescently showering the landscape beyond the walls with it's polarizing rays, spreading it's wealth as it revolves about. The whispered hum of the vacuum is driven in differing angles, dragging it's pitch along with it.

I stare at the ceiling and being to wonder; I begin to think. Not the type of usual thinking, where the aforementioned minutiae would go unnoticed or disregarded, but facing the real of it all.

But then again, what is real?

We all create illusions of what the present is dealing, what the past has dealt, and what hand the future is supposed to hold. Whether we feel it's a full house and we reach out to collect our chips, or a jubilee of less-than-synchronized numbers, leaving us with empty pockets and a baffled mindset, things are never as they seem.

You may think you're running a sprint but it's really a marathon. You may think you're failing miserably, but you're really doing okay. You may think, but you could be wrong. Everyone thinks, and everyone is wrong.

There's a difference between logos and pathos, mentality and emotionality.

This maxim of humanity, of life, continues to perpetuate the notion that these two items are separate, that they're a battling paradox which have no purpose for intermixing. It's interesting to detail what we strive for and so greatly value: seeing rational thought as a savior of sorts, yet time and time again it's our intuition, our conscience, our emotions that serve as our most looked to advisers, whether you're able to come to its admittance or not.

As bruised and battered, spoiled and loved as I have been, I can still say I'm profoundly in agreement with the famous poets, authors and philosophers who have become cage-free in noting the power of honoring our heart's guidance throughout the ages. Not that there's no room for rationality, as there's a time and place for everything, but finding that true balance takes a mature wisdom, one in which majority of the world is too blind to see.

I take my attention off of the ceiling and onto the screen, rolling back the technological pages of life's occurrences, and remember. My thoughts haphazardly play games with me, fading in and out of happiness and contentment, like a puzzle of scattered images reminding me of what was. I'm thinking about the past, but this time searching for the real.

Both the positive and negative about that, though, is that I found it.

"Don't try to reason with your heart - or feel with your mind - for, just as the heart knows no logic, the mind can't lead you to your soul."

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