Rest (continued, sort of)

So I'm two days into my "week of rest." I had to fix the home's wireless access device; I spent an hour or so helping a student of mine, reviewing some work that both he and one of his other teachers are getting antsy about getting finished, and then about a half hour writing some computer-related advice about the Internet for a friend who needed it, and then went to lunch with my wife because I haven't seen her much over the past week, too much stuff happening with tech week at the school play.

It was profoundly draining. Surprisingly draining. I was out of juice before we left the restaurant, ten minutes away from home. I think I used up all the benefit I got from yesterday's day off, and I'll probably spend the rest of the night in bed, recovering from a day I was supposed to have spent "recovering."

Tomorrow, acupuncture; if something is blocked, that'll get fixed, but it often doesn't stay fixed. (That's a different problem.)

My doctor tells me that he has a mantram he uses, when he really needs time to be his time; and as nice/deserving/worthy as the people who want him to spend his time on them, he uses this to explain to them how he is, unfortunately, unable to help them out. It goes like this:

"No."

Strange that one of the gifts of MS might turn out to be simple honesty: to be truthful about your own need for self-preservation.

Jon Bruno, the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, says that the Biblical story about giving your cloak to the man who asks for it is about sharing your abundance; that if you have enough to share, you should share it with those who have nothing. To give away what you need, what you must have simply to take care of yourself, seems like it's virtue (unselfishness), but it actually shows that you're a poor steward: specifically, a poor steward of what has been given to you. It's nice that you've taken care of someone else, yes, but harming people is just as wrong as helping people is right, and here, you're harming yourself.

Becoming a good steward of your own health. Another interesting gift of MS... one which, if I can get out of my own way, perhaps I will actually learn.