Amplify Your Positive Impact

My life hasn’t been super peaceful all the time and I’ve definitely needed support over the years. As I sit here on this glorious Maine June day with it gently raining and the wind rushing through the trees, our feeders filled with colorful birds and one of the cats sitting beside me, it is so peaceful, and I am reminded once again that I am lucky. I live my daily life allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. I developed these allergies in my late twenties. When I was first diagnosed with food allergies back in 1998, it was so terrible to navigate as it was unclear what foods I was allergic to. I even had an allergic reaction to the allergy tests! Now that I know what foods exactly, I am able to live my life more fully. My life was less than peaceful when the emergency room doctor saved my life back in 1998 from one of my worst allergic reactions. That moment has had a forever impact on my life. Then again in 1999 when I had the worst allergic reaction of my life while six months’ pregnant with our son Cam, the word lucky was used, only this time for the both of us. I’ve had multiple instances over the last twenty years when my husband, Peter, has had to take emergency measures to save my life. You hold your power, you hold your moments, and you are the driver of change if you choose to be. Today really is the beginning of the rest of your life.

Clear Blue Skies

This brings us to the topic of random acts of kindness. Talk about amplifying your positive impact! In our house, all of our kids were raised doing random acts of kindness. They each will tell you they have a moment in their childhood when they remember an act of kindness or a few that we did. We went in, stood in line, and when it was our turn, we quietly said we wanted to pay for the four people after us. Quaid just thought that was the coolest thing ever. That moment stuck with him. In his last year of high school, he and I created the Percolate Project for his senior project. Almost every state has now participated, of course, with much more to do. The concept is to randomly pay for someone’s coffee or order in back of you and pass along the orange Percolate Project card. We’ve had a person even pay off another’s medical bills. These are anonymous. My mom and I were in line in a coffee shop the day after my father died, and we were handed a piece of paper.

Show Some Emotion

Our order had been paid for. We couldn’t believe the timing of the universe! Thank You. Through our son Quaid and our community here in Maine, I’ve come to meet Haley Stark. Her story really resonates with me. From my experiences with my dad, I understand how recovery from a stroke of any kind can be. I have a place near and dear in my heart for stroke survival and stroke awareness. When I think of this, I don’t think of teenagers going through what Haley has endured. Both Haley and Quaid are honors graduates of Falmouth High School in Falmouth, Maine. Haley now attends Harvard. Please meet Haley Stark as she tells us about a change she certainly didn’t choose and the multiple unforeseen circumstances she faced. Certainly, these overcomers are entitled to minorly embellish the accounts of their journeys to satisfy the psychological, human need to dull memories of extreme grief and frustration. We produce content for our social media accounts and share our experiences with the tier of friends, family, and acquaintances too unfamiliar with us to discover our true selves, we intentionally obscure reality.

The Center of Attention

We edit, crop out, and delete thousands of photos before selecting the one that masks our insecurities and generates a faultless representation of our being. We obsessively track responses, likes, and praise. I do not fancy myself any sort of public figure, but when my community was following live updates of my recovery, I felt a pressure to perform. Now I feel a pressure to revisit my story with authenticity. My concern is the balance, or lack thereof, of sadness and happiness that we choose to present to others. If we started appreciating and welcoming the discomfort of listening to stories of despair, we may find a worldwide community of people who willingly hide their pain for the sake of an image. If discussion of the pain and imperfection that the digital, social sphere rejects was normalized, we could alleviate society from the imaginary sense of uniqueness, the loneliness, and the isolation felt when one endures pain. Pain and loss are part of evolving and growing, yet pain and loss are disbarred from one of the worlds in which we modernly live. Similarly, we ought to approach others’ stories with critical thinking. I thought that in order to achieve greatness, I had to keep propelling this façade forward. Luckily, I dialed back on this mission before I lost the distinction between the character and myself. The genuine version of me has not yet fully recovered from her trauma. At twelve, I suffered a rare spinal cord stroke that left me entirely immobile and unfeeling yet still cognitively intact. In the natural order of adolescent priority, I wondered if I would return home in time for school the next morning. An exceptional pain struck my right shoulder just hours after routine track practice. I reported the symptoms to my father, who promptly administered Tylenol. While adjusting myself restlessly on our living room sofa, the sharp sensation rapidly spread across my body. For a fleeting moment, all my muscles tightened and trapped me in utter agony. Ninety seconds passed, and a release overwhelmed me. I was completely paralyzed. Baffled doctors revealed to my parents that I would be forever paralyzed, unable to breathe on my own.