Escalation

Another of the myriad changes that come and go on a seemingly daily basis... Walking across campus from my car to my office, in the wonderful, wonderful fresh morning air, I enjoy walking. It's still difficult and slow, but the doing of it is somehow not just possible, but enjoyable.

One of my fellow MSers tells me that he has always craved sunlight. I have always craved air, especially gently moving full-of-life and full-of-energy air. Which in the middle of winter was gifted to me, recent mornings. It has been quite wonderful, even if it has been too cold (sometimes too "danged" cold, sometimes too "@%$#" cold... at least it isn't New England cold, I'm glad I got outta there when I did).

An interesting acupuncturing and dharma talk this week. I was definitely very messed up when I got to the office, and thank goodness, significantly less messed up when I left, although the price was several quite nasty points (which, if you were suffering from the conditions I was suffering from, you'd beg to have needled, nasty though they be). One of the very nasty points was Meeting of Yin, one of the less nasty ones was The Great Hammer; both of them are said to be good for reviving drowning victims. "Drowning" definitely described my pre-treatment state.

We also talked about some of the stuff I discussed in my last entry. Cowardice masquerading as denial has been something that has plagued me all my life; it doesn't matter whether it's a challenging situation or not, but pretty much no matter what in life I need to face, I either have no fear, or I'm completely shut down. The path out of this trap is acceptance... something I've never really been good at.

And now, after time upon time when life has presented me things that I could not escape dealing with... here comes the MS. The most unavoidable situation I've ever encountered. And facing me is the challenge to accept it; to truly accept it.

And I'm not there. Yet (I hope "yet").

The universe presents you the most interesting paths to enlightenment, does it not? I've often said that when the universe wants to teach you a lesson, it taps you on the shoulder. If you don't listen, it taps you harder. Each time it tries to get your attention, it escalates until it does, moving from "tap" to "slug" to "two-by-four" to "eighteen-wheeler," until you finally get the idea.

Well, the universe has escalated its call to me to come to terms with "acceptance" to "maybe if we hit him with MS he'll pay attention."

Maybe I should, huh?

It's still damned hard.