The purpose of life

What is the ultimate purpose of life? That question has been debated since the beginning of time. I have no definitive answer. It is deeply personal to each person. However, I want to give you my humble opinion.

The meaning of life is different for everyone. You need to find your own why or reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Family, friends, your career and your hobbies should be part of the meaning that makes up your life. However, while it is good to have a well rounded life, in my opinion, you should not put too much focus on any one thing.

You should do whatever makes you feel happy (as long as it is legal and not hurting others). Well this is all that I wanted to say. Thank you for reading. 

Til next time, Tyler 

My blog about nothing

I wanted to try an experiment. I am currently bored on a Saturday morning before I we go to a concert later tonight. A live orchestra will be playing the music from famous movies. It should be good.

Every moment of life should not be filled with activities. Being bored sometimes is natural and healthy. I am a lucky guy and very grateful for my family and friends. I don't generally get super bored because any day that I am out of the hospital is a good day! If I could have this magically never happened to me obviously I would choose that. However, since I can't change anything and I have to play with the cards that I am dealt, I consider myself very fortunate. 

Anyway, I can literally not think of anything worth a full blog post. However, I am deciding to embrace my feeling of being bored. I am not going to doom scroll on my phone to temporarily distract myself. 

I will try finding something productive that I can do or learn. I will use this time, not as "dead time" but time for self improvement. That is all I wanted to share with you. Short and sweet.

Til next time, Tyler 

Getting Older

Being able to age is a privilege that not everyone receives. I have had a good friend die at the tender age of 17. I have had multiple friends who died between the ages of 17-49 for multiple different reasons.

My dad's father died at the age of 36. I am only 40 and I have outlined all of those people. I am the same age now as my parents were when Lucas was born.

I don't mind getting older, it is only natural. However, it bothers me that my parents are getting older right along side me. I want them to live as long as I do but I know that is unlikely to happen. 

I have been through a lot, especially in the past few years. However, I still consider myself lucky and blessed. My situation could be much worse. I have no idea how long that I will live, or how I will die. However, living until 89 seems like a good age to go out on. Not too young and not too old.

My only hope is that I can make it through my life without developing Alzheimer's or a similar disease which makes me lose my mind memory. Because I could fight a physical disease like cancer but a mental one would be terrible.

I waited so long to become a father because I was scared of the responsibility. I was almost 36 when Eliana was born. She is my pride and joy though. She will be my legacy and hopefully outlive me by many years. My parents were 30 when they had me. When I was younger, I considered them to be old parents. It is only now that I realize how young they were.

I still feel mentally like I am 18. But physically some days I feel 18. Other days I feel like my current age of 40. Some days I feel like I am 100.

I have a friend who died in a car crash at the tender age of 27 back in 2010. I am still in touch with her mom via Facebook. Unfortunately, she has never really gotten over her only child's death. Until Eliana was born I didn't understand the depth of her love and loss. I do now though. I pray that I never have to experience it. Every day that we are given is a blessing. This life is a miracle.

Til next time, Tyler 

Reading

I was inspired to write this random blog post about my hobby of reading, not for any particular reason but just because I wanted to get it off my chest. I hope you don't mind and don't find it too boring. 

My parents instilled a love of reading for me from a very early age. At first, before I could read, they would read books to me. However, once I learned to read, it was off to the races. 

I used to read anything that I could get my hands on. I would read dime store novels, kids books, fiction, non fiction, nature books, I would have even read a VCR instruction manual if I could have gotten my hands on one. 

I had a big green pillow that I used to support my head and back. Over the years, that pillow was permanently indented with the shape of my head. I don't know if they still do this, but when I was a kid, you could earn free tickets to the State Fair of Texas by reading. I used to read enough to earn entry tickets for my parents and my brothers. 

I love (and still love) the feeling of holding a physical book in your hands. I love the smell of it and turning each page. I love how you can get lost in a good book. The time can fly as you are transported to another world. As a kid I used to read for eight hours straight when we would drive from Garland, Texas to Orange, Texas to visit my grandparents (mom's parents). 

When I went through my depression I lost all my desire for reading. I didn't even have interest in looking at my phone. However, after I made it through the worst of my depression, my love for reading was reignited. It was just like meeting up with an old friend whom you haven't seen in twenty years. I am so very grateful and happy that I started reading again. 

These days, I am much more selective about what I read. I just don't have the time to read anything anymore like I did as a kid. Now, I read both physical books (still my preferred choice) and ebooks on the Kindle. Staring at a screen is not my ideal option for reading. Although, I will admit, 1000 books on an e reader weigh a lot less than 1000 physical books! I read mostly non fiction books. Inspirational, motivational and self help style books. Basically, anything that isn't a horror novel. 

I still do read the occasional fiction novel and the two best books that I have ever read in my life are Ten things that are good about the world by Hans Rosling and Picking Cotton. A true story about a woman who picked a man out of a police lineup as her rapist, even though he didn't do it. They later became friends after he was finally released from prison. 

I am trying hard to instill my love for reading in my daughter Eliana Valentina. I try to read to her every night before she goes to sleep. Oddly enough, while I do read the news in Spanish, I have never sat down to read a novel in Spanish. 

I have also listened to a few audio books. However, it hasn't been many, I prefer to read rather than listen. 

Well that's all for now. I know that this was random but I hope you enjoyed it if you made it this far. Til next time, Tyler 

A general thank you to everyone

I was just thinking today about how truly lucky and how fortunate I am. I have had some health issues and other struggles. I would not wish my current physical condition on my worst enemy.

That being said, I don't tend to pity myself and I am happy to have been able to push through my depression. I can't do everything that I once did, as easily or as automatically as before. I am not in a coma or bedridden. I still have a lot of life left (hopefully) and I have a decent quality of life. I have come a long way since all of this started back in 2020.

I have a beautiful and loving wife and daughter. My wife is completely supportive of me and pushes me hard when I need it. She has more faith in me than I do in myself. She has taken in sickness and in health literally. She has had plenty of opportunities to give up and walk away. 

To be honest, I wouldn't blame her. However, she has stayed with me throughout it all. I love her more than words can express and I am extremely lucky to have her in my life. Eliana Valentina Horton Mojica has been through so much in her four short years on this planet. She is kind, empathetic, loving and helpful. She doesn't treat me any different than any other able bodied father. I love her to pieces and having her was the best decision that I ever made. 

I have an amazing family (both close and extended). Both of my parents have been extremely supportive and helpful to me with everything. Both of my brother's as well. Not everyone can count on their family so I am extremely fortunate in that regard. I have been blessed with great in laws and an amazingly supportive group of friends. I consider myself much better off than some. I wish that this would have never happened to me but it did. I can't change it. 

It has allowed me to take the little victories as they come. This condition has been the hardest on me personally. However, it indirectly affects everyone in my life. 

I also want to give a special shoutout to my in laws and my brother in law and two sister in laws. I can't forget about my sister in laws boyfriend Fran either. None of them asked for this but they have all been helpful and understanding. They have taken care of me and Eliana and never complained. Ana's boyfriend Fran didn't realize that I had medical issues when he started dating Ana but he has been totally supportive and helpful. My in laws treat me like I was their own son and they have been amazing. Not having my own family close by, this has made me feel extremely lucky. Not everyone is as lucky as I am with their inlaws. 

I do not take mobility or life in general for granted anymore. I can only continue trying my hardest to get back to normal life. I am very lucky not to have a degenerative condition. My condition should only continue to improve with time and effort. I could be content with my current condition. I could live a passable life in my current condition. 

However, to do so would be leaving me more dependant on Jenny and Eliana than they deserve. Both of them have been through so much and they deserve a chance at a normal life. They can't take advantage of that chance unless and until I get back to normal life. They are my two biggest and best reasons to stay motivated and keep trying to progress to hopefully one day get back to normal life. However even if I never do, I still consider myself blessed, loved and lucky. 

Be sure to hug your family and friends tight. None of us knows how long that we will have on this earth. Every day is a blessing. So this is my general thank you letter to anyone that takes the time to read this. I love each and every single one of you. 

Til next time, Tyler 

Our cruise

I will attempt to chronically explain our recent cruise by destination. We flew into Milan Italy. By this time on our trip, I was already getting sick. I was cold, tired and wet from the rain. I had a fever, chills, a cough and a headache along with a runny nose. I ate a cold, soggy pizza and retired directly to bed. Genova was where we boarded the ship. I was still running a fever and now I had started coughing. I went to sleep early in our cabin. The cabin that we had booked for Jenny, Eliana and I was adapted for a person who used a wheelchair such as myself. 

There was a showerseat and a balcony. It was large, spacious and comfortable. I was too sick to do anything other than venture out of the room to eat. Jenny, Eliana and Jenny's family got to enjoy the on board shows though. In Napoles, I was feeling well enough to venture off of the ship (in my wheelchair) and got to see a famous fountain before it started dumping buckets of rain and we had to scramble for cover. We managed to get back to the ship without getting soaking wet. In Santorini, I didn't get off the ship because the terrain was too hilly for my wheelchair. In Heraklion, I was actually feeling better but I had managed to get everyone else sick. No one from our group was feeling well enough to disembark in Heraklion. Our final cruise stop was Estambul, Turkey. They cut our cruise short by one day because of a Turkish national holiday. They did give us a 50 euro onboard credit though.

Personally, I didn't enjoy Istanbul at all. It was dirty, crowded, poverty filled and definitely not friendly for people who are disabled. We were denied entry to various tourist sites. The tiny cobblestone streets did my electric wheelchair no favors. I spent the majority of my time inside the van we had rented (with a driver to show us around).

After leaving Istanbul, we were meant to fly to Madrid. Jenny is always paranoid about missing her flight. She convinced /forced everyone to go to the airport three hours early. This turned out to be a good decision because due to a miscommunication, our driver dropped us off at the wrong airport. 

He brought us to the national destination only airport. Since we were flying to Madrid, Spain the international airport was located an hours taxi ride away. Luckily, we found our own transportation, and because of Jenny's paranoia about being late, we had enough time to make our flight to Madrid. 

After arriving in one piece to Madrid, we managed to get on board a bus to Pamplona (after some delays and confusion). After a four hour bus ride (with one transfer). We made it back home to Pamplona in one piece. 

I am still sick. I currently have a cough and a runny nose. However, my sore throat, fever and chills are gone. I hope to be back to normal soon. It was not ideal getting sick right as I went on vacation. I feel bad that I was responsible for getting everyone else sick. I also feel bad that everyone had to modify their trip to accommodate my limited mobility. Additionally, I feel bad that Jenny had to take care of Eliana and I all while being sick.

We had terrible luck with elevators on this trip. In multiple different locations, the elevators were out of service. I was forced to walk down multiple flights of stairs. I was lucky to have the ability to walk (although not well).

I would return to both Italy and Greece for another visit. However, I have seen all that I want to see of Turkey. I have no desire to go back again. Being in Turkey, where their President /Prime Minister/Dictator is, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I was slightly worried about us. However, we managed to follow all of the local laws and we had no trouble. Even in a dictatorship, all of the police and local security officers were very nice and friendly, especially to Eliana. They were very nice to her and curious about her life. It just goes to show that as long as you follow local laws, even in a dictatorship you can have a good time. 

We went on the trip with my in laws, Jenny, Eliana, my sister in law Ana and her boyfriend Fran. There were certainly some bumps in the road. However, overall I had a good time and I am glad that we got to go. 

Til next time, Tyler