It's hard to come down from the mountaintop.
The mountaintop calls to us; and we climb it, though the path there may be one that we have to make ourselves.
And once there... we are called to return; to return, changed, changed by the journey, changed by the struggle, changed by the call the mountaintop made to us.
Coming down is sad, and beautiful; but sad. Although, as a wise friend once said, "There are many paths to enlightenment, but 'nostalgia' isn't one of them."
And while on the mountaintop, I was absolutely hammered with ideas. Possibilities. Especially ways in which I can give back to our M.S. community, in very new, and very interesting ways. More about those if... If? Shall I commit to them by saying "when"? Yes, I will!
I'll say more about them when they come to pass.
In the meantime, I need to deal with the present. Some parts of that dealing are not at all fun; some parts of dealing with it are made more difficult by scars I acquired in my pre-M.S. past. Forgot about those, didn't we?
We spend so much time dealing with the scars the having-of-M.S. leaves on us that we forget that life itself leaves plenty of those, no matter what organic dis-functions you may or may not be dealing with.
Although having M.S., it does inure us to injuries that we might otherwise have taken. How many times have we heard this conversation in our heads, when someone expresses their displeasure at somthing:
"Bad? You think that is 'bad'? I can't do some things that have been central to my life and happiness since I was a teenager. I fall down with no warning. I need a wall or a wheelchair to do what I laughingly call 'walking'. My bladder has a mind of its own, and a capricious—sometimes malicious—sense of humor, at that. And I don't know from one day to the next whether things are going to improve, or disintegrate, or neither. And you call this 'bad'?"
Man, that was vehement. Guess I need to spend more time on that mountaintop, don't I?
Or to embrace the gifts that it gave me while I was there.
Ah, embracing gifts. We on the M.S. road are asked to learn that particular lesson many ways, aren't we?
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