Okay, so here are the facts.  I absolutely broke my foot this summer, and it absolutely took longer to heal than anticipated.  It opened my eyes to what it’s like to be physically challenged going through life on a day-to-day basis.

But my foot isn’t the only challenge I’ve faced, and that has been even more eye-opening.

This past Saturday, the man and I explored Ikea on a mission to find a piece of furniture for my side of the bed.  For anyone who hasn’t wandered the paths of Ikea, it’s a pretty vast place and the walk is long.  Along with limping a little due to my bum foot, I have also been dealing with stiffness and weakness in my legs, courtesy of MS.  As I struggled to stay on my feet and walking at a normal pace, I got frustrated with all the people around me for being totally oblivious of me ~ cutting me off or walking in front of me ~ or my favorite, not moving out of the way, thus forcing me to change my course.  I got mad ~ wanting to spit the words “This isn’t hard for you like it is more me!” at every person who bumped me, or caused me to lose my balance.

And then, as I sat on a day bed resting my legs for a minute and regaining better sight (exertion, heat and stress cause my optic neuritis to flare up, which as you can imagine, is always fun), it occurred to me that physically, I look exactly the same way I did a year ago, before all this bad sh*t started to happen.

There is no way for anyone who looks at me, sitting or standing, to know that anything is wrong with me.  And if a person -at this point- sees me shuffling along and favoring my left foot, they might assume I sprained my ankle.  Not that I’m struggling with my legs.

And I wondered how many times in my life I might have caused difficulty for someone else, struggling like me, who showed no outward physical symptoms that anything was wrong.

It sort of bummed me out.  And it’s been on my mind for days.

Do I want sympathy?  No.  Do I want people to treat me with kid gloves because they are concerned I am not as capable as another, fully healthy person? No.  But with that comes taking the lumps of walking around Ikea and being treated like everyone else … when physically, I’m not.  When physically, whether I look like it or not, I’m struggling to walk as normally as possible.

In January I came out of the gate strong ~ stay positive, live life normally.  Be normal.  That has gotten increasingly challenging as symptoms have taken over my body and I’ve been handicapped by a broken foot.  Through my mother, we visited an MS specialist at the beginning of August.  He felt my medicine wasn’t working, so as of last week, I’m on a new course of treatment.  We are hoping the new meds and the new doctor help to get things under control, but it’s definitely been an uphill climb.

This summer has been hard and things might be hard in the future.  But I hope I always have moments like that moment at Ikea.  Reminding me that from the outside, I’m still me, and I look the same as I’ve always looked.  And in truth, I am still me. And that’s how I hope I stay.

Let me first say, I’m so bummed that I dropped the ball on Friday for Photo Friday… again.  I had some really good ones to share!  Hopefully I’ll have some good ones this Friday, as Thursday night is our second Diner En Blanc Philadelphia.  (!!!)

I’m not traditionally a morning person … which is odd, because I have also become not a night person (I don’t know when 9.30pm became lights out for me … and yet, it is).  But when the man and I get up during the week (at the reasonable -?- hour of six), and the day is fresh and new and sort of quiet … it’s so beautiful.  And I love taking Lucy outside, and feeling the dew on my toes, and sipping something hot.  Mornings feel clean, welcoming – bright.

I love climbing into the car, ready for the day, mind full of ‘to-dos’ and still calm.  I love my office before everyone else arrives and the lights are still out in the lobby.  Whether I meant to or not … I’ve become a morning person.

Mornings have also become one of my most challenging times.  The further into MS I wade, as I work to manage flares and figure out the magical combination of diet and medicine that works for me, mornings prove to be the time when I feel most … well, MS-y.  My muscles are stiff and walking can be challenging.  My balance is iffy.  It’s really humbling.  I want -every day- to wake up and not think about MS.  Live a normal life.  Be normal.  It hasn’t been very easy recently.  But my foot and ankle are finally healing, and we’ve gone to see new MS specialists so all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that we’re on the right path.

“This afternoon, after running errands, but before succumbing to the rhythms of our normal life, the man set us up on our new back patio with a delicious Sauvignon Blanc (recommended by our friends/landlords) from Southbank (Marlborough, NZ) and a chess board.”

When I wrote this post on Saturday night, my eye lids were heavy, and when I re-read it on Sunday, I was a little appalled at how over the top positive I was.  It felt forced, strained almost.  And not because I meant to be forced, and not because I wasn’t trying to find the positive. I think it came across that way because I was tired when I wrote it, and wanted to avoid falling into any sort of melancholy.

Here’s what I meant to write:

We played chess on a beautiful afternoon while our crazy puppy idled around the yard without her leash (this is a miracle as she loves to sprint into the weeds and bushes the minute you let your guard down).  It was peaceful and gentle.  And as I stared at the rooks and bishops and knights (or, as I like to refer to them, horses) I thought how symbolic the game of chess really is.

My thoughts were jumbled on Saturday night.  The beautiful, crisp New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc could well have been partially responsible for that.  But I did have things I wanted to say … and not what came across in my first post.

Life is like chess … in that before every move you make, you analyze the consequences and try to figure out what will come back at you once you remove your fingers from the playing piece.  I think this feeling gets stronger as you get older, as you begin to see that every action has a reaction, has consequences (across the range … not just good, not just bad).  If I eat this delicious baked concoction of lightly puffed pastry and sugary cheese filling, I will have a moment of taste bud euphoria … and then for the next twenty-four hours I will have stomach pains and feel generally uncomfortable.  Was that cheese Danish worth it?  Was sacrificing my pawn smart when now I’ve left my queen vulnerable?

It didn’t help me that I played the beginning of the game thinking I had to protect my queen at all costs, rather than my king (feminism rearing its ugly head? hahaha …).  Once I learned that I could not sacrifice my king to protect my knight (because, well, then I lose, but also because at least in chess, you cannot put yourself in check) the game took on a whole different feel.  Sort of like finally understanding a tough math problem that had plagued you for weeks.

The man said I have a brain for chess (despite having played only four times in my entire life). I’d like to take that as a compliment, and walk around thinking I’m a crazy genius like Bobby Fisher.  But in reality, I have a feel for the game of chess because once I’m in, I over think every move.  I analyze each move I could make, each counter move my opponent could make, how each move would hurt/help me, how I could defend the next move of my opponent .. I over think chess the way I over think life.

It hasn’t helped my chess game.  The man has beaten me every time.  On Saturday he did give me the gift of a stalemate, which I thought was very kind of him.  It eased my wildly competitive spirit (you know, the one that hates to lose).

I think over thinking has served me well to a point … but mostly it has been my Achilles heel.  It makes me think of those test prep courses (SATs, LSATs, etc)  when they tell you to go with your gut instinct on the multiple choice question you just aren’t sure about.  I hate those questions … just like I hate those kinds of situations in life.  I like black and white, I like the right answer being obvious and easy to identify.  I drive myself crazy over the gray areas.

I guess this all comes full circle to my current (and permanent) new life baggage.  I can analyze the potential results of any choice that I make about MS.  I can hypothesize that food will help, I can hope that medicine will help.  I can guess that I’ll feel better when I figure out the right choices to make.  But just like chess, you sort of can’t predict how the game will progress until you make a commitment to a move.  And that can be scary in real life.  Because you just might lose.