Last weekend I logged onto my admin page for this blog, and I couldn’t for the life of me get the ‘new post’ page to load.  I was frustrated.  I had something to say.

So I typed it in a word document, determined to post it the next day.

But time has a way of slipping through even the most diligent of fingers, and my fingers, in regards to this blog, have not been very diligent of late.

I’ve re-read what I wrote a few times.  But for some reason, am no longer compelled to share it in its original form.  What I will share is the general idea of what the post was about.  And -hopefully -make it better.

My new car.

John and I purchased a brand new, all-white, fiftieth anniversary Chevy Camaro last Friday.  It’s a 335-horsepower V6 manual.  It sits luxuriously in our driveway, exuding power and sexiness.  I often look out the front window and down at her low profile roof, all slanted windows and curves.  I wonder who the lucky driver of this magnificent beast is, and giggle knowing it’s me.  It’s sort of hilarious.

But the car is more than that.

It’s a return, for me, to driving a manual car for the first time since being diagnosed with MS.  When I test drove it, my palms were sweaty, I was convinced I couldn’t do it — would stall out, grind the gears, ride the clutch until the acrid smell of burning filled the air.  But it wasn’t like that at all.

Driving stick is a little bit like riding a bike.  Once you know how, you know how.  And it comes back magically, as though all those years of driving automatic never existed.  As though you’ve always known the feel of the road through your gears.

Maybe I drove it too fast.  Took a corner badly (ps. can she handle or what?!?).  But it was intoxicating.  Even the nervousness of the visibility and the rumbling power under the hood could not dampen the pure exhilaration.

The past few months have been a roller coaster of life changes.  Leaving my job.  John’s surgery.  His new job.  Our changing routine and idea of normal.  Sometimes I’ve felt a little lost, looking for a purpose, a direction, something resembling motivation.

It’s funny that driving a stick shift again has been so seminal.  As though I’ve come back to myself.  As though the battle I fight every day, with the green smoothies and the bike riding and the water drinking and the vitamin taking and the …. blah blah blah … has come to mean something tangible.  I’ve taken little pieces of myself back since this disease took over.  Slowly, painfully, almost imperceptibly.

Fact.  I have MS.

Another fact.  It sucks.

Little victories ~ a new recipe that rocks, walking without a cane … once again driving manual …  they all matter.  They all count.  They are the things that keep me getting up, and blending spinach in a Vitamix, and sweating my face off in my garage on a stationary bike.

We named our new ride Memphis.  For our wedding song.  For our matching tattoos.  For the ancient capital of Egypt and for the city of Rock N Roll.

And she is beautiful.