The wall

The wall, as in "slammed up against."

A confluence of time- and energy-sucking activities, which I could not avoid, taking said time and energy away from other stuff that only I could do.

We hung lights for the show this weekend. It has been a while since the lights were hung by someone other than myself or a student (or ex-student) who really knew what they were doing. Instead, it was a fun and jolly learning experience for some of our students, provided by another one of the faculty. Who isn't as fast as I am (or at least "was," before The Disease). So, slow student being piloted by slow faculty member. It took two hours to hang four lights and gel and touch-up-focus twenty others (which started the day mostly pointed in the right positions). I could have done it in less than half the time.

The problem wasn't that they're just slower than I am... the problem was that there was a long list of other stuff that only I could do, that required energy/thought/creativity rather than simply patience, and waiting for the slow people ate the time/energy that I needed desperately for other activities (also, by the way, related to the play, and also on the critical path to "ready to rehearse Monday").

Same thing today. Had to skip lunch because I had to bolt from church to change to get to the school to set up for Open House. Then had to run sound at Open House. For hours. Then, finally, got to cue the lights for the show... which I would have done yesterday except I had been sucked dry of energy and time. Which, in turn, sucked me pretty much dry of energy and time today. Didn't get dinner until, um, 8:30 I think, because I couldn't take the time away from the work I was doing. And of course, no food means even less energy...

Being sucked dry is bad for me. Very, very bad. To add insult to injury, I'm going to the acupuncturist Tuesday (to get what I'm sure is at least one block cleared) and then I don't get to rest, I have to go back to school for a rehearsal.

What does this kvetching have to do with MS? Well, before The Diagnosis, it would have been a rough, but eminently doable, week. Sure, there's a lot of crap to do, but that stuff happens, and we get to the end of the week and the show opens and everybody has a great time and all your work pays off.

Post Diagnosis... we're gonna get to the end of the week, and the show'll open and everyone'll have a great time, just like before, but I this time, feel damaged. Really badly damaged.

I wonder how long it'll be before I feel like I've recovered. Well, we'll see. Perseverance, I thought I had already quite sufficiently learned by now, thank you very much. I guess I'm just really, really tired of having to persevere all the time.

So now, meta-perseverance is required. I have to persevere at persevering, so I can persevere at working/living/whatever I'm struggling with.

I guess I'm not completely drained. At least I still think that's funny.