Good, better, neither; a mystery

So, today, since I had been stuck at home yesterday and kept (let's call it that, for brevity's sake) from going to the place I wanted to go to, I decided today to say a very large "**** you" to the M.S. and take the drive to the library to do some research.

Had a wonderful time. And, I must say, "carrying" 12 books from the stacks to the desks at which you'd be reading them is much simpler when you have a walker to pile them into.

There was some wonderful air at the campus hosting the library; a gentle scent of "generosity" from happy happy plants. Ah, the lovely five-element season of Earth--not here yet, but its spirit is making itself known.

There was one point during the adventure where I was told that I'd have to "walk" (it's only in quotes for me, not for most of the library users) to somewhere outside the library, I still don't know exactly where, to obtain and pay for the magical cards that would enable me to use their photocopiers (in my day there, during my doctoral program, said machines were inside the library, not outside it). When I heard that, I told the librarian as I leaned on my walker, "Go where? Go somewhere else? Where's that? Y'know, sounds like good idea just to copy it down my own damned self." She smiled; she saw my point—and my smile.

I'm not sure what it is about leaving my house that gives me enough energy to function outside my house, and to enjoy it. I spent a lot of time this summer specifically unable to leave the house. Unable to deal with the world. Unable even to deal with the inside of the house, barely able to deal with "walking" across the house to get a drink or use the bathroom. Part of it, I'm sure, is simply deciding to do it, and having no spite or anger within that decision; simply, "I'm going." Part of it is having the energy to declare and claim that outcome; if one can't say "I'm going," to believe that one can go, that the simple doing of the going is already accomplished in the claiming of the outcome as possible to begin, one probably isn't going to go.

And interesting "which came first" question. Acupuncturists are taught that energy follows intention; but there's something different about "intending" to go and "deciding" to go and "committing" to go, and simply saying "I'm going" and reaching for your car keys—even knowing full well that you'll need the walker, that it's going to take a lot of effort, that ADA-ed places are going to be easy and non-ADA-ed places are going to be hard, or even impossible without help.

And yet, this time, I reached for my keys and left. I know that "what changed" was my consciousness, it's hard to say that the neurology was different. But was it? Or wasn't it?

Who knows? It'd sure be nice to know, though, if such things were under my total control. If they were, I'd just decide to not be limited by the lack of energy and go about my business as I always have. One of the lessons I keep re- and re- and re-learning is that "business as always" of the Former Days just doesn't happen any more. And yet, on Good Days, truly amazing (and often fun) things still can happen—even Better Things than happened in the Old (pre-diagnosis) Days.

A mystery.