by Ryan Thomason

Created on: August 24, 2009   Last Updated: August 26, 2009

Hello, I am 27 years old, married to a beautiful and intelligent woman, Jennifer, whom also serves as the stay at home mom of my first child/son, Lincoln. I have a great job that pays the bills and leaves little room for savings, an old, cranky, but affordable house that seems to have issues immediately after one gets fixed, nestled near the Wasatch mountain range in the state of Utah. I've had moderate to severe hearing loss since birth, and have dealt with it my whole life with the assistance of hearing aids. Just a few months ago, I was diagnosed with Ushers Syndrome, and told that I had until the end of my 'working years' or until around age 50-60 before I would be legally blind.

Today is April, 25th 2009, and today I decided that I am going to truly live my life.

At 7pm, my wife took a borrowed laptop out to Starbucks to book our hotel trip for our coming vacation to Washington, D.C. our first big family vacation. Lincoln, ever so demanding as he approaches two years old, was set on going outside for a walk before the sun nestled into the far horizons, taking a lapses for a few meager hours only to breach the end of darkness with the coming of morning. We sat on the ground, him in my lap, as he proclaimed that he held a shoe while I attempted to squeeze one on his right foot. Tired, and feeling ever more stressed, I could only grin at his antics, it warmed the heart when it felt cold and he deserved a kiss on his soft pink cheek.

With both shoes finally on, and tied tightly, I maneuvered him into one of our more recent purchases. It is a backpack doubled child carrier, which he's easily adjusted to sitting in it as we've been preparing for our trip. While I strapped the contraption onto my back, listening to his giggles as I lifted him off the ground and tugged it into place, it's hard not to smile at him. For some reason, he gets a pure kick out of you having to pick him up while he dangles his feet behind you. We moved through the kitchen toward our back door, where I half rested against the wall as I squeezed my walking/running shoes onto my feet. The New Balance shoes are fairly worn in, on both shoes, at the spot where the outside pad of your feet is under your little toe, I have a slight tear. I've wondered how both shoes got a tear in the identical spots, but considering how things have been going lately, it only made sense. No one thing can be broken when it comes to me; I have to have it in pairs. As the cool evening breeze sank around us, the

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