Post Sandy

I was happy to see this on msworld.org for help getting through this upheaval of Hurricane Sandy.

http://www.msworld.org/search/node

My thoughts and well wishes go out to all who live there.

A tired M.S. weekend. Spent my Friday night taking my auto-injector Avonex shot, spent all day Saturday and most of today until 4PM in bed feeling still tired and not confident in my balance.

But when I finally got out into the world to be out and run some errands my energy finally picked up and I became happier and happier being out on a beautiful day and people were so nice, really nice. It seems my enthusiasm of finally being out was contagious as other people 5 workers at 3 stores were happily helpful, so generous and kind. It was joyous.

It's wonderful to see such a big happy change when I spent sooooo much time in bed.

Patience and not giving up hope for better energy are two ongoing lessons in this disease. We learn so much.

Envy

There's a spider in my bathroom that is extremely productive. It builds this tightly crafted web in the same corner everyday. One of my housemates clears it away each morning and only two hours later everyday I see it rebuilt to exact completion of the web. It is a nice looking web and quite large as it goes about 7 inches from wall to wall in the corner and it even has different floors as if it is a drawing of a 3 story house plan. This project is rebuilt every day for a couple of months now. I haven't even seen the spider. It must work quickly.

On a day I felt envious and inferior since I can't do as much as I used to be able to do and I hear from my friends about what wonderful productive things they did or get to enjoy in life. I feel saddened by my ongoing and growing recognition that I will never be able to have jobs like them, get as much done as them, go on fantastic beautiful vacations or go skiing like them. I won't be able to organize and create like them as my life turns slower with my disease.

The other day my Mom and I were talking about not getting caught up in comparison and envy, and a meditation DVD I have mentions letting go of our comparisons and envious thoughts. I started laughing because I remember thinking of the productive spider and how I was jealous that it could rebuild it's web everyday so beautifully yet for me there's not much I can do, even changing clothes seems like a chore somedays.

Seeing the happiness in everyday and paying attention to my thoughts are some of the things I have learned from my mom, meditation books and tapes and I have to practice with this disease. Lately when I see the web I actually smile at it's beauty and it makes me happy to see it. I don't feel jealous that the spider doesn't have M.S. and can do that everyday. Instead I laugh at myself for seeing how my altered state of this setback has come to this – being jealous of a spider's beautiful web design.

I wrote this while listening to This is My Life by Shirley Bassey the disco version and it made me happy and helped me embrace my life with more happiness.

Fireworks

Too tired at 10:30pm to stay up until midnight to see our fireworks here in California. I was ready to call it a new year and go to bed, so I thought of other places that have already had theirs, New York and other East Coast states. I went to Youtube.com to see if any were posted on there. I came across some but the prize winning for me that night was Sydney Australian fireworks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_crNUYe3q8g

They had great aerial and ground views. An amorous lengthy line of purple, pink, yellow, white, red and more bountifully colored fireworks from numerous places up to the Sydney Opera House was BEAUTIFUL and a sudden thought came to me about the natural energy light that's inside me in many places all throughout my body.

I have been trying to get in touch with my inner strength and best mindset. I am trying to work on my energy not only my physical energy but also my mind, thoughts, attitude and emotional comfort of this M.S. life and this huge life change.

That long line of fireworks in Sydney Australia gave me a keen spark of transcendental understanding. That was a great sight and feeling for beginning a New Year and a New Attitude.

I happily curled up in bed early. I had my New Years and would wake up to a great tomorrow. I wish us all a great year.