Getting really sick felt a little like sliding slowly beneath the surface of the water.  Not flailing or panicked, just sinking slowly, unable to move or help myself at all.

My head slipped below the surface and it felt like forever before I began making my way toward the light again.

I don’t feel one hundred percent, but I don’t know if that’s even an option any more – age, multiple sclerosis … life.  Too many factors making it tough going.  The pain in my hip screams, protests, and I keep pushing forward, blindly ignoring my body’s cues.

I wonder if this is how it always is – good intentions, starting off strong and then somewhere along the line losing my way completely.  Exhaustion, pain, disappointment.  It piles up until trying to keep going feels fruitless. What even is the point?

But – life is the point, right?  We aren’t guaranteed anything after this.  No one has come back to let us know what to anticipate.  Either it’s really great, really bad or there isn’t anything at all.  So this life – MS and hip pain and discouragement and failure – that’s the gig.  Take it, leave it, but you only get one.

I’m trying to rev up my engine after weeks of drowning.  Find my rhythm again, find my motivation.  Remember all the promises I made in January, when the whole year lay ahead, unlived and full of potential.

We have trips planned and accommodations booked & paid for and we keep trying valiantly to make the most adult decisions we can.  We paid off the new truck (I named him Monty but John’s less on board than he was for Bucky).  We paid off our debt.  We have two homes.  We have savings.  I need to talk to our financial advisor, I need to make vet appointments for Lucy.   Most immediately I need to cook dinner tonight.  It never stops – the responsibilities, the slipping by of minutes and hours and days.  Routines and adventures, surprises and sharp, unexpected left turns.

I’m still determined to finish YTT before leaving for the U.K. in May.  I’m determined to get my health back on track.  I’m determined …. I suppose that’s the first good sign.

xox, g