I got to yoga late this morning – not so late that I missed the start of class or anything, but late enough that I ended up front & center (literally).  I don’t mind front but center always poses a problem.  I usually use the wall when I begin tipping over and it absolutely helps me during balancing postures.

Today was Fun Friday Flow and as I said to Sue (our teacher) after class, her definition of fun is wildly different than mine!  It was a challenging class partly because I had no idea what was coming and for my MS body, that’s a real challenge.  But in its own weird way, practice was fun.  Because I was fully present.  I couldn’t not be. It was just me and my mat and sweat.  For seventy-five minutes.  And that was glorious.

Sue began by having us think of an intention, and I didn’t so much have that as I had a thought.  Nine years.  That’s what I kept thinking when I was wobbling or unsure.  When I needed to center myself and come back to the basics.  When things felt too hard, or impossible.

As of today, I’ve been diagnosed with MS for nine years,  And I can still get on my mat and I can still practice.  And some days are better than others but they are all better than those first two years of Lydia(my cane) and losing the ability to write and sliding helplessly down the slope of disability.  I can walk and I can think and I can – if I’m disciplined – do more than one thing a day and survive.

I’m healthier than I ever was as an adult without an incurable neurological autoimmune disease.  That’s a certainty.  I eat better and drink better and sleep better and exercise better and think better than young, ‘healthy’ Gwyneth ever did.  I’ve learned a lot in nine years.  I’ve felt loss and I’ve felt despair, yes, but I’ve also felt joy and accomplishment.

MS is hard.  It’s hard for many reasons, but a big one is that I don’t look like much of anything should be hard.  I look like a healthy forty-something.  And I am, but I’m also not.  It’s weird and uncomfortable living with that juxtaposition.

But I’ve been doing it for nine years.  Like I’ve been saying all day – wild.

Xoxo, g