Questions

Man.

Things aren't getting easier. Why that should surprise me, even a little... I don't know.

An interesting day, at work. A seminar for all us teachers. Some interesting things were said. Some things that were not said were also interesting. And were quite revealing, in their own way.

Of the many interesting things that were said (and unsaid) and that were revealed by the presentation (and were also revealed by some questions the presenter was unable to handle), the most interesting were questions that only I heard, because they were raised by my own "inner voice."

People have told me that I would be good at being an "inspirational speaker." Well, I do hope that in my role as a teacher, I'm inspirational, on many levels, so that's a match. But I looked at this presenter, and I asked, "Do I want to be like him?" And the answer "NO!" came back loud and clear--but then again, there were things about his presentation that were also definitely not what I would have wanted to do whether I was touring to do them or not, so that question was clouded by the presenter not doing precisely what I would want to do.

I was at a meeting at school. Surrounded by my colleagues. I like and respect them. It's an honor to be counted amongst their number. I absolutely love working with the students--they're my best therapy. And I asked the voice whether I wanted to keep being here.

I got two answers:

"Yes. You belong here."

"No. You don't belong here."

Well, THAT was helpful. Especially because the "No" was louder than the "Yes." Well, that raises another question: If not this, then what?

"Now what?" is a question that gets raised by the life with M.S., isn't it? Thrown in your face, even... isn't it? And it's going to get thrown at me until I answer it.

Well, I can't answer it right now. This, I can answer: Why am I bringing this up on an M.S. blog? Which is oh so very often "covering" the Neurological Battle, the challenges that neurological malfunction puts before us, the losses we must face, the choices we must make.

Well, those last two are definitely where I'm at. Where the M.S. Highway has brought me, sooner than I wanted to deal with them. It's just like life, that way, ain't it?

In the TV series Babylon 5, the aliens called "The Shadows" always asked the question, "What do you want?" That's the question that I feel is being put before me. My beloved magic teacher Eugene Burger says, "How will you know that you've gotten what you want... if you don't know what it is that you want?"

And, truthfully, I can only sort of answer that.

Great. That's another duel I'm having with the M.S. Highway, over and over, ever and ever: Confronting the state of "sort of."

So then... here I am. As much as I'm getting tired of confronting "sort of," I'm definitely not into confronting "Now what?" Or "What do you want?"

There's a gift of M.S. Questions you can't walk away from. Just like the human condition.... except, pretending that you can't answer them, that's the first thing that's removed from our lives.

Interesting "disease," isn't it?