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My meds are not working yet. That fact may not mean anything but I’ve begun to wonder about my thought processes when the pills are not working. Therefore, this is an experiment, of a sort. Today’s ramble is about guilt. Specifically, feeling guilty about not being able to join the military. I know, It’s silly. I am well past the age when any branch of service would want me. But I’ve never sat down and said this is how I fell about it. Due to an accident of birth I never had a chance to serve. During a time when boys my age were going to Canada to keep out of the army, a friend and I would approach the Marine recruiter and would attempt to convince him that there must be some way we could join, that there must be some job that a wheelchair would not prevent us from doing. That sergeant never once complained or told us to stop bothering him. Every year I was in college that same sergeant came back and every year for six years we tried. Sometimes I wonder why he did not tell us to stop pestering him. For me, I guess those discussions were a first attempt to resolve the guilty feelings. After college it seemed I could not avoid the men who appeared to be unable to talk about anything except their service experiences. It doesn’t happen much any more. I guess they’ve grown beyond it. This really is rather silly. Nobody believed me when I said I would fight if I could. Now I’m told I should be glad I was unable to join. Logically, I realize I probably would not be alive now if I had been able to join the military. So many men and women did not come back and those that did were changed in ways that I cannot begin to imagine. What I continue to ask myself is why I cannot get past this? Why is it coming back now? My meds are working now. As I read what I’ve written during the "off" time I see many typos, the sentence structure is the pits, and the English is frightful, but the thoughts are mine. They are not less valid. I still don’t have a answer. Why do I still feel like taking the world by the neck and yelling "It’s not my fault! I have no reason to feel guilty! I’m here and I’m not sorry!" Wait a minute! Maybe that’s it? If so, it’s even sillier. Why should I have feelings of guilt about being here at all? Nobody In my family has died. But when I stop and consider the matter I’ve been conditioned for the opposite state. The doctors told my parents I would not see my 20th birthday. Every year when I returned to summer camp there were friends missing due to lung failure or some other complication due to the neurological disorders we had in common. I learned that yesterday was gone, to be forgotten, that tomorrow was not here yet and after tomorrow did not exist. My parents did not plan for high school and everyone seemed surprised when it became a requirement. My first case of future shock came when a small gentleman arrived shortly after my nineteenth birthday wanting to know why I had not registered for the draft? I carried that card around for years, dead certain that if the government could find a never employed teenager they would know if I did not have that card Nobody planed for college. I because that was beyond tomorrow and nobody else because the odds were against it. Then came high school graduation and I woke up. I had no skill worth mentioning and my industrial arts instructor had just told me I should look for another line of work. I found myself again doing the unexpected. Call it luck, providence, God, or stubbornness but I had managed to outlive most of my childhood friends and was on the verge of doing something I’d never dreamed of, leaving home. That sort of brings me back to why do I feel guilty about being alive? This is really stupid! I’ve got as much right to be here as anyone. Upon reflection, I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity given me and if that advantage came as a result of a physical disability, I played it for all it was worth. I did not think the world owed me anything, but I did not turn down what was offered. Perhaps what this long nonsense is about is this. I’d nearly forgotten rules one and two. 1. The world is not going to make adjustments because I’m different, adapt to it. 2. Yesterday is gone, forget it. Tomorrow is not here, don’t fear it. Life is today, deal with it. It’s slow going, but I’m getting there. Marvin Giles