Oh well

Yesterday was Big. Very Big.

A friend took me off-campus yesterday. I wanted to Get Some Stuff, but I knew I only had so much energy, so we prioritized. We went to the place where I get my best and most favorite oolongs, and I figured I'd take my friend to lunch as well; the tea shop abuts a nice and also favorite restaurant, and I figured my friend would never have gone to somewhere like this. "Chinese restaurants" are different from "Taiwanese restaurants," as a chef I figured he'd spot the difference in flavor quite quickly. I prefer the Taiwanese, even for things like ma po tofu, they're better, by my account.

I had also maybe hoped to get a new iPhone, but neither of us was into an Apple Store excursion. My friend hates the place, he says it's like dealing with the Borg.

As it turns out, there's an AT&T store two doors down from the tea place, so we popped in there and got what I needed. They even did the "stuff transfer" from the old to the new, which my friend told me they wouldn't do at the Apple Store he went to when he was looking for his. 

Well, I had to hang out there to supply passwords and such during the phone-activation process, and that took way longer than I had hoped, but I got the new phone! And then we went to the tea shop and got the tea and fed my friend.

As for me, I was toast. I had maybe a dozen bites of my yummy lunch, and that was all I could take. That was all I could take for dinner, too. Energetically, yesterday was terrifyingly expensive... I'm not driven to say "never again," but it's gonna be a while before I ask to go out again, I don't know if I'll ever want to go out for eating because being that low on energy destroys what little ability I have to eat things. Which is pretty damned low already.

I'm thinking, at least wait until it gets closer to or actually into spring; maybe the warmth of the season will warm me up energetically enough to just go to one place, do one thing. We'll see...

I'm getting acupuncture today... it'll be interesting to see what yesterday cost me from her point of view.

"Normal life" is clearly not the "normal" I'm used to.

Not a surprise, but not even air-quotes "fun."

Oh well.

Consciousness

Well, to follow up on the last post and the hopes for another off-campus adventure...

Didn't happen, alas. I knew by the middle of the morning that it was a "sounds nice, but ain't happening" kind of idea. My wife did make it to the film, and apparently it was really quite wonderful.

I might have asked to be taken home by the time I got there. Leaving the house, the bed even, was not a good idea.

Oh well.

I do still have something to do today at home; a life coach will be making a house call. I look forward to our conversation... She always has great ideas to offer me, even if what I have to offer is in getting-things-accomplished terms a non-starter. In football terms, it's hard to coach a guy to throw a ball if he ain't got the strength to come to the field and just hold the ball.

And staying in that metaphorical world... again, I'm called to a consciousness change. I can condemn my own condition, and not even try to hold the ball, or I can recognize that just wrapping my fingers around the ball is a victory, even a small one. Can that become a throw? Again, gotta change consciousness... To take the victory in the simple "just do what you can" world, because even the best QB in the world can only do what they can.

It's not a deferred "just give up," it's the simple truth of the moment. Doing something is different from doing nothing. What comes of it? Doesn't matter, and doesn't effect the victory-in-itself of the moment.

I spend a lot of time in "don't even try because nothing can come of it" mode, and Lord knows I've brought "denial" to the level of a national pastime.

On the MS Highway, there's not much to be done in the "being afflicted by MS" world, we do what we can but does it do any good? Who knows, but we keep trying anyway.

Physician, heal thyself, as the Good Book says. And the first thing that needs to be changed is the only thing over which I have 100% control.

Consciousness.

It all starts there...

Sounds easy

Yesterday was indeed a Big Day. I went off campus, I left the house to GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I dunno about "flourished," but I did better than just "survive." It was energetically expensive, but it was worth it.

I went for the first time in, oh my, years, to my clubhouse... Hollywood's Magic Castle.

Friends from the Mystery School were there, in part to celebrate the School's 25th year. And to just celebrate together. A mini-reunion!

I am scheduled to go Off Campus again later today, to see a silent movie accompanied by a live theater organ. I hope I'm up to it, when the time to go comes.

But just going off campus is HUGE for me. I used to do it daily. I haven't done it, quite literally, for months. Do I want to do more? Maybe... Maybe not. I suppose that's the relapse-y remit-y thing, the "Some days good, some days bad," sort of thing, but I think it's deeper than just that. I'm on the bottom line pretty wither-y, doing lots of  lying in bed and drowsing while listening to favorite cartoons. No music writing, nothing even vaguely musical... And the Mystery School faculty, who were very pleased with my in-person presentations, are telling me to video-blog what I have to offer. I suppose I can quite easily still think about such things while lying in bed, but the mechanics of actually doing the video-blog thing are currently not in easy reach. "Things being in easy reach" is indeed a thing us wheelchair folks know a lot about...

So, more as it happens. Or doesn't. Or does, but only sort of. Or surprises me.

Just like, y'know, life.

...Which we are all called upon to engage. To fully commit, simply to being alive, however we can, as often as we can.

Sounds easy, don't it?