Art imitates life

A fantastic acupuncture treatment this week, it was indeed. Effective and, as always in the Five Element Classical Acupuncture world, quite poetic.

But my acupuncturist also spoke with me about my relationship to ever-so-many "can'ts," and she suggested that attention and energy should be put into the "cans" There are indeed things that I still can do, even though said things may not be in the list of things I was used to or things that I liked or even the way I was accustomed, even practiced, doing.

For example, the truth is that yes, thing X is a thing I can do. Not in the same way that I used to, perhaps not in a manner that I'm happy with, but that doesn't change the "can-ness" of simply being able to do it. Things may come with it that I don't particularly enjoy, certainly not things that I would choose, but none of those change the essential "can-ness" of simply being able to just plain accomplish it.

She echoed something that I've been pondering for a while... There's a lot about the MS Experience that is at least at the moment unalterable or completely unknown in its alterability, but consciousness-- that, I can change.

First change: Stop fixating on the way I do things, and look to the result, which on the bottom line, may still be quite reachable. Just via a different road. May be bumpy and have lots of gnarly stuff on said road, but the destination may still be very reachable.

So, do something. It'll get me closer to the goal. Don't dwell on the changes that have happened to the manner in which I have always reached the goal.

Or in the words of the beloved civil-rights-era song, "Keep you eyes on the prize... Hold on!"

Life imitates art... sometimes, it needs to.

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...