Wife and I took some time to visit the local Arboretum. Lovely springtime flowers, lovely fresh air. A lovely cool breeze, full of the scents of the Arboretum's many flowers. And peacocks, many of which were strutting enthusiastically for peahens (who were uniformly unimpressed).
It was a wonderful afternoon trip; one which we haven't done enough, and need to do again. And again. And again.
I'm still negotiating the waters of "gotta sleep now now now," feeling especially energy-free. Which is too bad, since there's music that I at least think that I want to write... but doing so requires sitting in the studio and thinking and creating and doing all sorts of non-lying-down-and-sleeping activities.
Also something that I noticed within myself today... the very-large-air-quotes-"walking" is doing very poorly. Worse than ever; every day is worse than the day before. I nearly fell over taking the wheelchair out of the back of the truck, something I've done time and time again without almost-falling-over. My wife pushed me all around the Arboretum in the wheelchair; she did so in very good spirits, which certainly felt good, that she felt so good, even while she was being of such huge assistance to me...
But I'm so very, very, very low on energy, I started wondering today... does this what old age, end-of-life-old-age, feels like? The slow, dissipating every day, evaporation of ability to do anything... Now please be reassured, I'm not "contemplating" anything, but I must admit, I have been thinking about giving away precious possessions, making sure that the people that I care about that I know will enjoy these possessions for their own sake, get them... Such contemplations are hardly taking over or anything like that, but thinking about "Time to face up to 'time to say goodbye to activity X' " and "It's time to admit that I'm never going to use that again, why don't I give it to someone who will;" I don't know that I really want to come out and say "This part of my life is over" but given what I'm able to do, plus the feeling that M.S. or not it is time to say goodbye to said activity, and what few abilities I have are fading slowly, slowly, slowly, always fading...
My herbalist says that M.S. has often been called a "withering" disease, in the Chinese-medical circles... and that it is, oh yes, that it is.
Now, let me reassure you: Am I depressed? No! Am I sad? Well, don't know if it's denial raging to the fore as it does so very very easily, but at the moment at least, no... but I am getting very, very, very quiet.
A side effect of (admittedly overdue) meditative introspection, and emotional/spiritual housecleaning? Something I've been doing a lot lately... Well, perhaps, perhaps...
A side effect of needing to sleep all the time? Also "perhaps." I'm trying to approach the "Gotta sleep now now now" as simply "Body wants it, give the body what it wants, the sooner it gets enough of what it wants, the sooner it'll stop demanding more of it." The I-gotta-have-answers part of me probably won't be happy until said answers are positively delivered, but... even knowing what it was about, what's there to do about it?
And also... then again, what do we M.S.ers have to continually face, no matter what our symptoms are? And of what must we remind ourselves?
Hang on for the ride. Do the best you can. Enjoy what enjoyment is given you with as much enjoyment as you can. And laugh. Always, laugh.
As the anime series Kino's Journey said, "The world is not beautiful. And therefore, the world is beautiful.
But... Neurological nonsense notwithstanding, the world is beautiful.
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