WordPress – JMWEBERHILL WRITES

The World is Awake.

It’s a little after Midnight on the East Coast and I can’t sleep. I just got back from an Independent Wrestling Show and I’m too jazzed up after being Bret Hart breathe the same air as a wrestling ring. I love that man, he was my very first superhero and all time favorite wrestler so I am without a doubt a happy girl tonight. However, I can’t help but think. The house is quiet and honestly surrounded by love so I’m finding my muse poking its head out of the tiny rabbit hole she lives in.

Anyone else notice that the world is awake? Places, people, hell even some nature is louder than it has been in awhile. It feels as if the world has resumed in a big way. Sometimes I catch myself on the train just kind of taking it all in. My new office takes me through Times Square which makes me feel it all the more. There’s easily over 100,000 people per day that flow through that station and I can remember when we barely saw 10 in Grand Central Station.

It’s all very overwhelming when you take the time to examine the comparison and how easily the world can stop on a dime, but it is also incredible to see how much the world is actually resilient too. It’s so easy to lose yourself in news, politics, and the hatred that often fills the world and it makes it hard to see the beauty out there. To see how we as a collective society took a fall flat on our faces and got back up again is awe inspiring to me. We were put up against impossible and unknown odds and found a way to make it work the best we can. We still have a long way to go to sort out the bad in the world, but we have the means to do it if we lean into the power of resiliency and the strength of community.

Maybe, I’m a glass half full kind of gal but it’s nice to have a world where society is alive again and doing their damn best with what they have. Forgive this style of ramble but it’s been sitting with me and I wanted to take the time to share.

A Promise Kept

To tell this story and personal triumph, I need to work backwards to describe how I got to this point. February 2022 brought me my very first bone fracture in 32 years. Honestly, the fracture sucked but the how it happened stuck longer with me than the actual pain of the fracture did. I was walking out of a store near my job and riding an escalator to exit the building. I was on the escalator one moment and then the next I was flat on my face in the pocket of a revolving door. My shoulder had slammed straight into the lip of a revolving door and people watched me fall and did absolutely nothing. I quickly learned what adrenaline was, because I was able to push myself into a sitting position and get the hell out of the door but that still resulted in multiple people stepping over me. Luckily, I was conscious and aware, and I was able to call for help for myself. This injury led me to about a two-and-a-half-month rehabilitation period which became the biggest mental and physical challenge for me I’ve ever faced.

I wasn’t prepared for the mental toll that having a fractured bone would take on me. I thought that I’d be in pain, I’d take some medicine, rest, and move on. However, with a broken limb it took away a lot of the everyday independence that I was accustomed to. I was no longer able to feed myself with ease (I could still do it, it just took long), I was no longer able to wash my own hair (the rat’s nest was real, my friends), and I was no longer able to wear any shirt that I wanted to wear with ease because if I moved my arm too much I was forced to face the blinding physical pain that came with the movement of a fractured limb. I was forced to wear different versions a surgery shirt to accommodate my injury, day in and day out with no change. It was a constant reminder that I was injured with a long road ahead of me. At first, the brilliance of working around the injury was a blessing, but then it became like an anchor of a reminder I was carrying around and I started to hate it.

With the extra time on my hands, I dove into my comfort shows and All Elite Wrestling was one of them. I was watching an episode of Wednesday Night Dynamite and Adam Cole pulls this odd looking guy out from the under the ring. His name was Danhausen. I’d heard of him but never really explored his body of work. With the added time on my hands, I went into a deep dive and fell in love. Danhausen became the humor and fun that would keep me company throughout my injury. While I was watching him I noticed that my dreaded shirt looked like his ring gear which was a nice way to redirect of the thought of having to be stuck in this dreadful shirt. I was now reminded of Danhausen which helped the mental struggle and gave me motivation to push through rehab. Knowing that Comic Con was coming up, I decided that I was going to take this shirt and put it to good use, I was going to survive rehab and no longer think about this shitty feeling from this shirt and I would cosplay Danhausen.

With all of this said, I kept my promise. I survived rehab, I survived the pain of being stepped over, and I survived, period. I kept a promise to myself! I was able to cosplay as Danhausen and even meet him! Being able to tell him my story even if it was a quick talk meant the world to me. It was nice to be able to replace a bad memory with a great one. It’s also nice that I was able to stick to my word. I have a hard time with consistency so the idea that I set this goal and successfully kept this promise feels like a win to me. Sometimes life throws curve balls and it’s especially rewarding when you’re able to hit those curveballs right out of the park.

Dear Professional Wrestling,

We first met when I was five years old. I’d say it was safe to assume that it was by accident, when my young parents let me take in the fighting amongst larger than life entities. From the moment, I saw the commercial where Bret “The Hitman” Hart gave his glasses away to the kid, I knew I wanted to have that experience some day. I was quickly enamored with him and his ability to make everyone love him with his athleticism, love for his country and especially his family. Bret was the very first super-hero figure that I have memory of in my life and he holds a special place in my heart still this day.

The first time I met Bret Hart at NY Comic Con in 2014.

We really fell in love when I was twelve years old, didn’t we? You were all I could think about or talk about because you were the escape I needed and the license to be different from the kids around me. I was always a quiet kid with a broad imagination and the hyperbolic stories you offered only fueled my own ideas of what could be some day. This was the age of The Rock, Shane McMahon and Triple H. I had a crush on all three of them but their athleticism and charm wasn’t lost on me. They were cool and that’s exactly what I wanted to be. These three were incredibly influential to me, but none of them would ever be Chyna Doll or Chyna or how I would later remember her as Joanie. Joanie was the only woman I had ever saw who was just as athletic and full of life as the men in the sport and sometimes even better then them. She was the stand out, just like I often felt I was, so I was fascinated by her. She was the person to give me the license to be different and the fearlessness that was needed to be a preteen who wasn’t like the ones around her. Her presence and body of work carried me into my adulthood with priceless of bravery. I cried like I lost a family member when she died. My love for her ran deeper than I was willing to admit. She was like an old friend.

This is from her WWF Women’s Title win over Ivory at Wrestlemania 17. This is one of my favorite matches she ever had. She looked so happy.

We broke up for awhile didn’t we? I got older and the need to fit in outweighed the need to find out who I was authentically, but all was not lost. When I met my wife, I was able to find you again. I watched you casually at first and began to enjoy your stories from the lens of an adult rather than a child and preteen in search of something. How foolish I was to think you couldn’t give me something. 2016 was the year of Cody Rhodes. He left the WWE and went on the quest of the independents. It was his journey that gave me the community I didn’t know I was missing. I felt a little out of place as an adult fan, but with my investment in him came the community of adult fans who were just like me. I was no longer weird or different, I found community in people who enjoyed you just like me. You have always been the gift that keeps on giving.

Meeting Cody Rhodes for a 2nd time at House of Hardcore in Long Island in 2017.

These days are relationship is more quiet but still steady. I turn you on for comfort, I go to matches for my favorites but I also go to matches to spend time with the people I love the most (even the ones that don’t love you like I do. Love you wife). All of this to say, thank you. Thank you for being the steady light in the sometimes really dark and crazy world.

Love Always,

Ebbs and flows

I wish I had a consistent flow of thought that could be an endless supply of profound or exciting things to say but too often my writing is dictated by mood, events, and just general time to sit down and really think about what I want to say. There are so many times that I come on here and try to draft the perfect stream of thought and get angry when it inevitably disappears out of my brain. A lot has been happening to me and the general population and I’m freaking exhausted. It’s a hard line to walk when you’re trying to figure out what your personal life looks like during a pandemic while the world feels like it’s on fire around you (obviously hyperbole but these days you never know).

I’ve had this incessant need for self-expression and not the faintest clue of where to start. There’s so many topics I’ve dabbled in on this site and I want to continue to grow the platform. I am trying, I am here spinning my wheels hoping to make use of my abilities and give myself a space to heal but also a piece of myself to those who do read this. To the people who do I appreciate every single one of you. All this to say, I’m working on some things, with zero timeline so I don’t look like a fraud in promising content and having it not be there. I know I’m not disappearing from thousands of people but the level of consistency I’m trying to learn is very important to me.

I know I’m not alone in this struggle. A lot of writers and bloggers I’ve come across all hit a dead space from time to time. I have the privilege of not making this my career but rather a passion project. It’s something that doesn’t go unnoticed. I’m hoping to find that passion or a more consistent realm.

Love to all.

The Unofficial Attitude of Gratitude (2022)

In 2015, I came across a blog challenge presented by Tales from the Motherland, my friend Dawn Quyle Landau. Dawn wrote a post in 10 minutes about 50 things she was grateful for and invited others to participate. While the 50 goal isn’t always achievable in the time span, I’ve always had a lot fun trying it out and doing my part to fill the internet with gratitude versus the not so nice things it can show in a day’s work. I’ve always loved this challenge because it became an annual way to end my year/or begin it by reminding myself about all the good in my life. Last year was the first year, I didn’t participate/see the challenge presented (for obvious reasons) but I wanted to begin 2022 and bring it back around. I don’t have the same scale of community that Dawn has, but I am presenting an open invitation to anybody wants to participate. Feel free to share your post with me on this platform or Twitter. The challenge is to write as many things you’re grateful for in 10 minutes. Good luck and have fun with it! While life is all about balance, I think it’s important to try and drive as much positivity as we can muster especially in today’s crazy world.

Without further ado, here’s my list (not in any order/preference):
1. My Corgi, Penelope – she’s the light of our lives.
2. Being able to see more family this year after a hellish 2020 (hope to see even more in 2022).
3. Marco Polo. This app is a Godsend. My friends and I began weekly chats on Zoom through the height of the pandemic but this app has turned it into daily ones.
4. My wife. She’s my partner in so many ways. I love our life together and I love growing as a couple and as people.
5. My faith. Finding an LGBTQIA+ ministry in a Catholic Church setting has felt like finding a unicorn in real life. I am so lucky.
6. Having a job after all of the chaos of remote life.
7. A place to live.
8. Not losing anyone close to me to this horrible virus when so many people did.
9. Therapy. It took me almost 10 years to finally unpack things but I’m glad that I have been trying and learning.
10. My family both born into and married into.
11. Music/Podcasts – I hate being alone and I’ve spent a lot of time on my own with my wife returning to the office. They’ve kept me company. (Shoutout to Ask Iliza Anything and Drama Queens, my two favorite podcasts)
12. The ability to learn something new daily.
13. Streaming services. Sometimes mindless and time consuming, other times live saving and just the distract you need.
14. Learning that creativity can be more than just my writing.
15. My new found Lego hobby.
16. Coloring books.
17. Starting to speak my mind even when it’s uncomfortable.
18. Colleen Ballinger
19. A good pair of earrings never failing to make me feel sexy.
20. Being able to go back to places I never thought I’d see again.
21. Meditation for calming me down at my worst.
22. Living in a city with so many food options.
23. The drive to continue to learn about myself and never giving up on that journey.
24. A clean house.
25. Video games.
26. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone when necessary and having the support in my life in which to do it.
27. A good blanket
28. Trips to my parents house when I need it or when I need to see them.
29. My co-workers who I went two years without seeing but was able to pick up right where we left off.
30. A good cup of coffee.
31. The Letter Project for showing me how many women are just like me/how I can be of service to more women who need the encouragement.

Thank you for letting me share and I hope that this entry inspires your own list of gratitude. Happy 2022!