There are times when it feels like stress will tear me apart when panic seems like a new permanent resident within my mind.
When I know I need to switch jobs because I feel there is no way to “succeed,”
When I go home to find stressful behaviors abound and see my wife struggling to maintain her sanity and she asks why I am still in my same stressful job,
When nothing I say or do seems to break through to my son as we discuss the damage of lies for the hundredth time even as we hold seeing the new Star Wars film as a reward for when he stops lying for a week,
When it feels like my mistakes multiply faster than my efforts to repair them can keep up,
When I strain my calf muscle again training for a run in June…
It is in this environment, that I have to follow through with my decision to switch medications from one that has stabilized my MS for the past 8+ years. I am stopping Tysabri that brought me from unable to exercise beyond a rowing machine. I appreciate the rowing machine because when I fell, it was only 6 inches and meant it was time to get back on the machine. While on Tysabri, I have been able to run and run and run. Thanks to Tysabri, I am going to run a half marathon in June (calf is healing on schedule).
It’s funny, but as I feel myself panic at set backs and fight the urge to hang my head with a sigh of exasperation, I find myself retreating back into the words I use to drive me forward on my challenging runs.
“Failure is not an endpoint unless we make it one. Failure is a milestone to be used going forward, to measure our progress on future attempts.”
It is only then that I am able to slow down my mind’s pace and see some of the great things happening around me. I might screw up. I may fail often, but there are some wonderful things worth pausing to enjoy whether it is a rainbow clear enough to see all of the colors distinctly or my blind daughter laughing as she tries to move her egg down the white house lawn swinging her spoon nowhere near the egg.
Just make the choices the best way I know. Put in the effort. Then kick em up and hobble slowly…
