300 brownies

There are things that bless me insanely...this is one of them. I had a sweet, sweet woman make 300 brownies for an event we have at church. Not prompted or requested, just a "hey I thought you could use this" thing. grateful for 300 brownies. 

In Defense of my Fangirl Passion

Inspired by Justin Roberts's recent post. This has actually been rolling around in my head for a really long time, and I'm just getting it down on paper/blogpost. A lot of people like to knock professional wrestling. To an extent, I understand some of the problems people have with it. People don't understand the whole transparency of the fourth wall thing that happens with wrestling, so they don't get it. And they don't get the fans, the business anything. So they knock it as 'fake,' they call the fans stupid or any other list of names.
I won't echo a lot of what Justin Roberts said in his post, but let me tell you about the impact it has on my sister.

If you now me in real life, you know I'm the oldest of seven kids (before anyone says "Didn't your parents know what causes that", five of them are adopted). My youngest sister, Ellie, is a lot of things.

She is a spitfire, full of personality.

She is goofy and sassy.

She is determined and tough, stubborn and opinionated (as Darth Vader learned).

She has an eye for catching pictures at 'the right moments'
Like this one of our friend Josh

Or this one of Ryback

                          

Or this one of Roman Reigns (okay, this is good in her mind...she calls it "Sassy Roman", please don't ask, there's no excuse for this child).

                               

The thing you might not know about Ellie is that, in addition to being a beautiful, sassy, strong willed, loving and amazing little girl, she also has spina bifida. If you don't know what SB is, it's basically a hole in your spinal cord that keeps the nerves from forming properly. She has to wear braces to keep her feet and ankles stable. She has to wear a back brace because she has scoliosis in addition to the Spina Bifida. She has special shoes that fit her braces and help her stay stabilized as she walks. She uses crutches and sometimes a walker to help her get around. Her bladder doesn't function normally and she has to use a catheter 5-6 times a day. We've had surgeries, doctor's visits, falls, scrapes, etc.
All that extra hardware leads to this: She looks different than other kids. It takes her a little longer to get places, and she can't play all the games at PE sometimes. 

When she was younger, around 1st grade, she started noticing HOW different she was, and she was upset. She'd have periods of depression where we couldn't get her to smile, sometimes for strings of days. One night, just as a random thought, I decided to watch old Smackdown episodes on Hulu. She looked over my shoulder and was immediately hooked. She cheered when Kane threw someone down in a chokeslam, and squealed when Sheamus Brogue Kicked someone else. She even wore all black to one show so she could be dressed 'like Kane', and would've painted her face like an Uso "if they'd been there to see it".  If she had to rank her top whatever, they'd be Kane, Sheamus, Goldust and Stardust, Daniel Bryan, AJ Lee, Dean Ambrose, the Usos, Roman Reigns, and Bray Wyatt/the other Wyatt Family guys. 

We've been to two shows together. Alberto Del Rio blew her a kiss, and she still brags about it. Lillian Garcia took the time to speak to her for just minute, and she decided then and there that she wanted to be a ring announcer. Justin Roberts waved at her and she giggled for twenty minutes afterwards. Vickie Guerrero said "Hi princess!" and I've never seen her smile so big. The story that gets  me is probably something Sheamus doesn't even remember doing. We were walking around a football game and she heard someone, a grown woman, tell the person she was on the phone with, "Oh my god an ugly little disabled girl almost stepped on my toe." We got to the car and she looked upset, then she smiled and said "I'll just get Sheamus to Brogue Kick her". I nearly died laughing and posted it to twitter, where he re-tweeted it. We got so many replies and encouraging messages from that, and she knew that people were going to accept her just as she was. 

She wants to be a ring announcer like "Justin and Lillian", or a commentator "like Renee on NXT and mean ol' JBL". Being a wrestling fan showed her that, even though she might not be able to do some things, there's still an outlet to be involved in something she loves. The small interactions she's had with wrestling personalities, which I'm sure none of them remember, still leave her talking about them and how happy they made her. But here's the thing that i think makes the difference for her: Kane is a different sort of character. Bray Wyatt sure as heck stands out, as do Luke Harper (personal favorite, just throwing that in there) and Erick Rowan. Sheamus doesn't look like everyone else, and neither does Daniel. AJ doesn't dress like the other divas. Goldust and Stardust sure as heck stand out. The Usos and Roman Reigns also have things that make them stand out, and Dean Ambrose is just his own person. Through wrestling, she gets to see that it's okay to be different, that it's okay for her to stand out and to march to the beat of her own drum. For that, I'm thankful. I don't know if she would've learned that had it not been for WWE.

So, while i get the whole misunderstanding of it, don't knock wrestling or wrestling fans. It has its flaws, like all companies do, but look at the good. Look at the fact that John Cena holds the record for granting the most wishes ever (and a heck of a lot more than Justin Bieber, you can have that tid-bit for free). Think of the B.A.Star campaign against bullying...and then think that somewhere, there's a little girl practicing calling wrestling matches with her Rumblers, knowing, through her favorite people, that it's okay for her to be different and that she can do great things just the way she is.