by Jen Bricker
After the gym, I come back home, shower, eat a snack, cook lunch so I have that ready, then usually run errands. Depending on how crazy my travel has been, I might squeeze in a thirty-minute power nap. If I have a shoot, appearance, or performance to prepare my body for, I might do two workouts a day, my second around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. I eat small amounts every two to three hours and keep a strict food curfew: no eating after 7:00 p.m. I stay insanely hydrated and drink green tea twice a day and caffeine-free mint or ginger tea in the evening.
If I have free time, I spend a lot of it at my favorite local café. In fact, I’ve written a majority of this book at my little spot. It’s a French-style place with a little gift shop attached, and it has a homey feel with outdoor seating, big umbrellas, and a peaceful fountain. You’ll always find me sitting outside, unless it’s one hundred degrees. The café serves organic teas and vegan desserts, and the staff knows me and my order: “Jasmine green tea, as usual?”
My other guilty pleasure is going to the movies with Grant. If a superhero or action move is playing, we’re there. I’m such a bro when it comes to movies. My absolute favorite is The Punisher, with Thomas Jane. It’s based on a Marvel Comics fictional antihero/vigilante.
In the evenings, I cook dinner and eat between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m., always having a tea to finish off my night. I typically cook the same things multiple times a day: eggs and sautéed veggies. I also buy sprouted-grain wraps and tear them into little triangles, put them on a baking sheet, spray them with a little EVOO, and sprinkle on some onion or garlic salt. Then I pop them in the oven for ten minutes—and voilà! Perfect, healthy “chips” that are free of flour, yeast, and corn! I like having two or three of those with every meal. I try to make my last meal of the day my smallest meal. You know the saying, “Breakfast like a prince, lunch like a pauper, and dinner like a peasant.” Eric, of course, taught me that! I eat extraordinarily healthy, but I do have one weakness: I love to munch on some sweet potato fries!
I like to wind down by catching up on TV shows from the week that I’ve missed on Hulu. I love Once Upon a Time, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, The Middle, and Criminal Minds. Thanks to my wild life, I just got to be a guest on the set of Criminal Minds and meet the awesome cast and crew. I was welcomed with massive open arms and lots of love. Joe Mantegna is even a fan of mine. That is nuts! I try to limit the number of new shows I watch because I’m just too busy to keep up with all of them! I finally caved a few months ago and watched Game of Thrones. Now I’m hooked. I binge-watched four entire seasons in a month!
I try to go to bed between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. Eric also taught me that when it comes to resting your body, the hours before midnight are worth double the ones after! Going to bed early (before midnight) and getting seven to eight consecutive, uninterrupted hours of sleep is extremely important.
I try to pull away from the computer and my phone for at least thirty minutes (on good days an hour) before bed so my brain can get out of work mode and relax. Reading makes me fall asleep fast. My former roommate, Cody, called me a “little Romanian vampire” because I sleep on my back (I trained myself to), don’t move a muscle, and breathe so softly it looks like I’m not breathing at all! I have two fans on at night. I like it cold, dark, and quiet, and the sound of the fans lulls me to sleep.
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How Do You Walk?
The thing people most want to know about me is how I walk. Well, I put my hands on the ground in front of me, pick up my body a bit, and pull it forward. The skin on my palms is callused and a bit thicker, like you might find on the ball of your foot. I have always had bigger, stronger hands than most girls and have always been self-conscious of them. I assumed they were like this because I used them so much, but it turns out their size is actually in my DNA: my biological mom has “man hands” too! Using my hands to walk definitely requires a lot of upper-body strength. I even underestimated how much work it was in high school, going up and down the stairs multiple times a day all day long, picking up my whole body and propelling it up each step. The school was built in 1912 and had four floors and no elevator! I gained weight when I got out of high school, and I’m convinced it was because I wasn’t constantly going up and down stairs with my arms and getting that great workout!
Walking on my hands rarely hurts, even on rough pavement or gravel. I know how not to put as much pressure on my hands on these surfaces. When I was about nine, I did put my hand on a bee (ouch!) in our yard, and that made me a little paranoid. It hurt so badly, and I screamed and cried. I was always looking out for bees—and dog poo—in the grass. Anytime anyone broke glass in our house, my parents were on their hands and knees inspecting the floor like crazy. But for the record: I never cut my hands on anything my brothers managed to knock over. I was always pretty mindful of where I “stepped.”
I look like anyone else from the waist up. I’ve been told I look pretty darn good in a bikini, thank you very much! My body is in the right proportion; it just looks as if it stops where my upper thighs are.
Deep Thoughts, Deep Feelings
I’m a big thinker. I analyze stuff all the time. Why did he say that? Why did she do that? Why is there always a traffic jam in LA? What did God intend for me to learn when He delayed my flight three hours? What is the meaning of life? Okay, perhaps I overanalyze.
I’m always searching for the bigger picture or the reason behind something unexpected. I like to study people and figure out what makes them tick. A lot of life is connecting the dots so you can follow your path where it’s supposed to take you. It’s important to take a step back and assess things: Where have you been, where are you now, where are you going?
I get lost in the pages of a great book—the Bible being the greatest—and swept away by my vivid imagination. I’m sentimental. I hang on to things forever. I still wear the opal ring Grant gave me for my twenty-first birthday when we lived in Orlando. I have boxes and boxes of photographs, and I am always taking more and studying them with a highly critical eye. For example, I love looking at the hands of Camelia, my birth mom, in pictures. They’re the same as mine—strong yet soft.
Laugh It Off
I’m funny. No, really, I’ve got a wicked sense of humor. If Jimmy (Kimmel or Fallon) had me on, I’d be their favorite guest ever. I crack myself up, which I consider a great gift. It’s hard to stay mad at someone when you’re laughing—after all, laughter is the best medicine. I look for the humor in almost every situation—even the ones that genuinely stink. I think if you can laugh at yourself, your shortcomings (pun intended), and your mistakes, then you can overcome anything.
Details, Details
When I get stressed, I want to organize things into nice, neat little packages. You could say I’m borderline obsessive-compulsive with all my attention to detail. I used to freak if my DVDs weren’t perfectly lined up, if one was pushed out farther than the others. I’ve eased up a bit, but I do like order. Give me a list, set me a deadline, tell me whatever needs to be done and I’ll do it. Just don’t leave me hanging! My mind will ricochet off into a million different directions, and that allows the anxiety to build. I’d rather know the reality of the situation—even if it will cause me stress—than have someone sugarcoat it. I’d rather be in on the problem and working toward a solution than be a helpless bystander. Good things come in small packages, people. I’m a grown-up. I’m probably more grown-up than most twentysomethings because I’m an “old soul.” I’ve also been all over the world and experienced things most people never get to in a lifetime.
Super Jen!
I’m a not-so-normal “normal” person. I am not a superhero with superhuman strength (physically or mentally). If someone’s going to be impressed by me, I’d rather it be because I’ve done something impressive, not just because I am happy and in shape. Guys— particularly buff, biceps-rippling types of guys—tend to approach me in crowded places and tell me I inspire them. Let me say that again: I inspire them? What a humbling and interesting experie
nce to have men open up to me in that way. I think it’s amazingly beautiful!
Yes, I can climb a flight of stairs with my hands and not break a sweat. Yes, I can haul my own wheelchair into the trunk of a car—and the thing weighs a ton. But let’s get real: I’m not Super Jen (though it does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?).
Lay Off the Lead Hand!
I drive. I was the oldest girl in my grade, so I was first to get my license when I turned sixteen. My car was a red two-door Pontiac Grand Am. One day, on a whim, I asked my parents if we could go to a car lot just to browse, and we ended up getting the Grand Am the very next day—for a great deal! Rigging it for me to drive with no legs was no biggie: a handle was placed to the left of the steering wheel, right under the turn signals, to control the brake and the gas pedals. If anyone else were to drive it, they could just use the pedals like normal. I push down on the handle for gas and forward toward the dash for the brake. My mom always joked I had a “lead hand,” because I was always speeding. (For the record, I still drive that car, but I need a new one!)
The night of my sixteenth birthday, the day I got my license, I was backing out of our driveway (it’s a tricky driveway, and you have to turn sharply to avoid a ditch) when I rammed right into my brother’s truck parked beside me. In my defense, it was nighttime, and the truck was a dark color, but I wound up making a big dent in the side of my new car. Basically, it was a dent and run: I continued driving and met my friend in town. I was horrified and so upset, not to mention afraid my brother and my parents would kill me. When I got home, I worked up the courage to tell them, and they weren’t angry at all (in fact, they tried not to laugh, but I caught them).
Parking Pains
These days my wheelchair can make driving a real pain in the butt because I have to fold the chair, then put it in the car. Next, I have to make sure when I park that there’s enough space to get the door open and drag it out. Finding a wide enough parking space in SoCal is a feat in and of itself (maybe I am Super Jen and don’t know it?).
I rarely ever park in handicapped spots, because I feel other people need them more than I do. But when I do, I sometimes encounter difficult people. One day I was searching for parking at a store in Orlando but there were no spots, so I pulled out my handicapped sign and hung it on my mirror. I was pulling into a handicapped spot when an elderly woman started beating her fists on the passenger-side window. Grant was sitting there and jumped a mile.
“You took that parking spot from my husband,” she bellowed, “and you’re not handicapped! How dare you!”
First, I was shocked that someone would behave this way. Then I was steaming mad! I pointed to the handicapped sign hanging from my rearview mirror, but she was ranting and raving so much, she didn’t notice. So I took it off, slammed it against the windshield, and yelled, “Here! I have a sign, lady!”
That convinced her and she left, but Grant and I just sat there in silence, trying to figure out what the heck had just happened. Then we started laughing! “Oh my gosh, Jen, you have to get out,” Grant insisted. “She’s going to feel like such an idiot when she sees you. Rub it in her face!”
But there was no way I was going to do that. I had absolutely nothing to prove to her. I had a similar incident happen recently here in LA. The parking lots are small, and finding a parking spot is always a game of chance, so I pulled into a handicapped spot to run into a store and get some groceries. As I was pulling out, a lady beside me in a black SUV shouted right in my face through the open window, “Oh yeah, like you’re handicapped!” This time I didn’t blow my top. I just said, in a very calm tone, “Lady, not today . . . you don’t want to go there. I actually do have a wheelchair.” And I pulled away. I was kind of chuckling, and then I thought maybe I should have thanked her. She was at least policing handicapped spots for people who need them. But I guess because I’m young and don’t look handicapped when I’m driving, I elicit this frequent reaction from people. You can understand my hesitation to park in a handicapped spot unless I absolutely, positively need to. It’s not worth the aggravation!
Ground Level
For someone who spends most of her time in the air as an acrobat, I know this sounds a little strange, but I like being on the floor. When I was in Japan, I was psyched to learn that Japanese people sit on the floor on big pillows and even eat while sitting on the ground.
A Time to Weep
I don’t cry often, but as I get older, I’m softening up. One time I was at a karate black-belt graduation (random, I know!) and an elderly man came up to me. He collapsed in my arms and started sobbing. All I could ascertain was that he was a Holocaust survivor. I was so moved, so overwhelmed by his outpouring of emotion that I started to bawl as well and couldn’t stop! For this reason, I steer clear of sappy movies. If I know someone dies in a movie, I will not go see it. I got dragged to see The Fault in Our Stars, and I swear it scarred me for life.
Milo and Me
I’m a total dog person. Growing up, I had a couple of different dogs: Buddy the cocker spaniel; Eddie the Pomeranian; Speckles the terrier mix; then came my baby. When I was thirteen, I saved up all my money ($150) and bought a crazy little Chihuahua named Milo. I spoiled that dog rotten and treated him like he was my baby. He had so much sass and personality, and he truly thought he was human, not canine. My dad was convinced he could understand English. He would say “We’re going to leave” in ten different ways, and Milo would bound toward the door. It became a game. He’d say, “I think we’re not going to be in the house anymore” or “Let’s be on our way,” and Milo would still get it. He loved car rides but hated baths. I’d have to hold him in a towel for twenty minutes after one, and he would cry like a baby in my arms.
Things I Hate, Things I Love
I hate when people are late—it’s the fastest way to tick me off!
I hate loud noises, car alarms, and fluorescent lighting. They all put me in a bad mood. I think olives and pickles are gross and kind of weird, and I prefer a good game of tic-tac-toe to chess.
If I had a million dollars, I would hire a very good financial adviser to show me how to make that money work for me. I’d give a bunch of it to my family and to orphanages and adoption centers. And of course, I’d put some away to travel to every country I’ve ever dreamed of seeing. First class!
I’ve always seen shooting stars in the sky since I was a kid, when no one else would see them. I thought it was God giving me a wink or a little “God treat.” I hadn’t seen one in a long time because here in LA, the sky is not that clear (we call it smog). I’d almost forgotten about my shooting stars, and then, out of the blue, one night I caught sight of one. I keep track of these sightings in my journal as a reminder. I could easily forget over and over how many of my prayers have been answered. But God reminds me of His goodness and His miracles whenever I least expect it.
I’m a “small things” kind of girl. I’m easily enamored with and excited by tiny creatures and objects—anything tinier than I am. When I see a little animal, especially a cute little dog, I turn into an overly excited, baby-talking nutcase! I also love dollhouse miniatures, little tea sandwiches, itty-bitty anything. You will never hear me say, “Supersize it.”
I’m a sucker for a health food store, where I will comb the aisles in search of chemical-free, “clean” beauty products and pure dark chocolate without any dairy or refined sugar.
I hate loud music, and I’m not much for going to clubs. Give me an acoustic guitar around a campfire or a song in the shower. I’m into jazz, blues, country, and Nashville nights. I’m a girly girl who has bro-ish tendencies. Most days you’ll find me in stylish, fitted, bright-colored gym clothes, no makeup, my hair in a ponytail. But I also spend money on manicures and clothes. I love fashion, but I prefer a bargain to spending a ton just for a label.
Regular shirts fit me perfectly—no alterations needed. Same goes for jean shorts, regular shorts, bikini bottoms. Obviously, most of my dresses need to be altered, and my
friend Mary Jane, whom I met in the wardrobe department on Britney’s tour, lives fifteen minutes from me. She’s been a beautiful person in my life. The only pants I ever buy are slightly longer workout shorts/tights. I have them cut and sewn to make the perfect workout wear for me. My mom is really good at sewing, and maybe one day I’ll actually learn to do it myself. But for now, I can barely sew on a button!
I love fairy tales, The Hobbit movies, The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter. I’ve never seen any Star Wars movies and have no desire to. I love Julie Andrews and everything she’s ever been in. I could watch Independence Day with Will Smith over and over and over, and it never gets old! Tyler Perry cracks me up, and one of my favorite restaurants in LA is called The Stinking Rose. They put garlic on everything.
Fall is my favorite season for so many reasons: the changing leaves, the colors, the brisk air, wearing cozy jackets and scarves to ward off the chill. I love sunshine but not the rain. It brings me down, and for that reason I’m sure I could never live in Seattle! I love hotel robes—the big fluffy ones you wish you could take home in your suitcase but someone would surely notice they were missing—and riding on my brothers’ Harleys.
I don’t have fears because I don’t allow myself to go there. If you focus on a fear, it can become a reality. I only speak positivity and truths from God and His promises. As my faith has increased, my fears have diminished.
I’m very hard to offend. Unless you’re straight up being rude (which rarely happens), trust me, I won’t take offense if you ask me something or are curious about me. I never want people to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me.