"It Is Finished" (Said With My Best Martyred Voice, Hanging High On My Self-Made Cross!)...

At last...the kitchen/dining room painting project is completed...in spite of my numb-turned-to-fire-fingertips! Just goes to show you (aka MYSELF) what I can accomplish when I put my mind (and body) to it.

Yes, my fingers were cumbersome then painful throughout the project...big deal. Those of us with MS know how to work around challenges. If we didn't, many of us would never even get out of BED everyday. And yes, my cement neck hurt(s) like a son-of-a-gun...nothing that can't be managed via "better living through chemistry" (aka, drugs). LOL

There are far too many days when I wake up in the morning and just want to give up. I want to hide between my sheets and somehow hope life will just whirl past me to some fantastic "end", where I can yell out, "Do over!" and get to try this thing called living one more time. It's not about being depressed or hopeless or suicidal or listless...it's about *wishing* for some kind of magical clean slate without MS. It's about REMEMBERING a time of feeling immortal and invincible...remembering a time when this thing called living seemed less of a chore and more of a promise. And then I remember a conversation I had once with someone who became sightless during their adolescent years, and perspective returns in my world.

My blind acquaintance lost their sight at the age of 14 due to a genetic disorder. Prior to this age, they had 20/20 vision. I remember feeling so horrible to hear their story of being able to see the world once, then having it removed from their vision forever and I commented on how absolutely devastating that must have been for them...after all, wouldn't it have been better to have never had sight at all than to LOSE something so precious and KNOW it was gone?

My acquaintance (who at the time of the conversation, had been sightless for over 20 years) said this to me: "Had I never had sight as a child, I would have never truly seen beauty...I would have never been able to appreciate the colors and the movements people can describe to me now in my world. And I certainly would have never come to appreciate the senses I rely upon and have had to learn to use in different ways to "see" the world as you do through eyes. I am so lucky to have seen the beauty around me, if only for a short time."

When my MS begins to drag me down and I feel "unlucky", I remember this conversation. I have KNOWN what it is like to run a race...to sprint across a finish line...to shoot a basketball through a hoop...to hike a mountain trail...to look up at stars (before vertigo)...to be pain-free...to party all night (before fatigue)...to speak eloquently...to accomplish much in little time. These things I have KNOWN and my mind and body have not forgotten. How very "lucky" I am in life to have had these experiences...how very lucky I am in life to still be able to complete projects around my home...even IF it is far more difficult to do with MS.

How very lucky I am that I can SEE the new color of my kitchen walls:

And SEE and FEEL the coolness of the new tiles on my floor:

And how very lucky I am that I can say, in spite of MS, I DID THIS...that I still CAN do this...and, it is finished.