Cost of living

Now, when I'm talking "cost," I'm not talking "dollars" (which fly out of my hands disturbingly quickly, usually headed at MS-related services), but energy. Spoons, as many MSers would describe it.

Today's activities:

1. Drop wife off at train station.
2. Drive up the street to grocery store.
3. Do a quick bit of shopping, including getting tonight's dinner.
4. Drive home.
5. Put food away. Then, take a break; have a snack. (I was feeling shaky.)
6. Drive to vet to buy cat food.
7. Struggle up the stairs to the vet's door, to discover that they're closed.
8. Drive to post office.
9. Mail score/cd combo to publisher (keeping of fingers crossed, and waiting for publisher to receive and respond, thankfully require no additional energy)
10. Drive to pet food store.
11. Buy cat food.
12. En route back to car, run in to a friend I haven't seen in person in a long time. We have a wonderful talk; standing in the sun as we talk, my core gets overheated, my legs are grateful for the warmth.
13. Say goodbye to friend; push grocery cart back to car (it's getting real hard to walk, by now).
14. Drive home. Much more uncomfortable than I liked, the driving.
15. Lug cat food into house.
16. Open bag, feed cat, put bag away.
17. Turn on A/C and finally, sit down.

Now, before this summer, I would have described that in a single paragraph, with zoomy descriptions: Dropped my wife at the train, whisked by the store, zipped over to the vet (closed, alas), ran by the post office, shot over to the pet store, ran into a friend (we talked), and popped back home. As though it were just one big sweeping motion. A three-spoon day, at worst.

Now, everything costs. A lot. Each one of the above activities took too much time--mostly, because I walk so very, very slowly nowadays--and way, way too much energy. Each one of those is a one-, or maybe two or three-spoon activity.

How many did spoons I have to start with? I'm not sure, exactly... but not that many. Not even close to that many.

This is one of the things about my current expression of MS that I'm having the worst time coping with. Sure, I could do it, obviously, because I did do it. But at a price... My ever-slowing walking pace costs a disturbing amount of time, and now I have to spend more time on recovering, from spending too much time spending too much energy.

Well, there are only two solutions: Spend less, or recharge more. Haven't figured out either of them, yet.

But I hope that yet is the important word, in that situation. I'm especially interested in the "recharge more" part--that, I'd really love.

If I could get to "recharge" at all--that'd be nice, too.