It’s been so long since I have actually posted to this blog as I find myself posting more on other websites rather than my blog and I hate losing paragraphs posting here). The odd part being I still think of myself as only a superficial extrovert, meaning I readily give information about myself to others just not anything I worry about others knowing. I tend to spend more time thinking about the nature of things and my thoughts on them, and most of those thoughts I don’t share. Every now and then, I’ll share some of the odder end products of the process like below, but I don’t often express the rest. For a long time, I thought I would do that here…but the simple truth is I don’t know how…and I rarely have the energy to put into words the process.
How can I explain my hurt when a higher up than my boss thinks they should go on a trip rather me because of the strain it would put on my MS? I have worked hard to never let my MS interfere with my work or to at least minimize it. Heck, in ways it has made me a better manager. I certainly document more, even if it is to compensate for a moderately bad memory. I’m stuck because I don’t want my job to be altered because of my MS or for me to be thought of as inelligible for travel. This trip to Guam and CNMI is one of those trips many would leap through fire to go on. I want to go…and yet it’s a scary prospect.
That last part is what gets me. I was in a position where I had to push to say “don’t rule me out because of my MS.” Then the trip was lengthened to 3 weeks. Then I was encouraged by my boss to push for 1st class because of the toll on MS. It may take a toll, but heck if I am going to push to go saying my MS should mean I can’t go only to follow it up with a “but pay for my first class tickets because I have MS.” Of course the kicker today is my boss saying he was glad I was refusing to make that push because it keeps him from having to pursue…only to follow up with a push to straight from DC to Guam (20 hours) without a stop over. There are merits to that approach as it gives a full day to recover in Guam before the work begins…but I hope nobody thinks I am a wimp if I admit to a bit of trepidation about how I will feel at the end of the 20 hours. Sadly, I’m not 21 anymore. I still “think” I will be OK.
It’s just when I already worry at leaving my wife and kids for 3 weeks as I see increasing difficulty for my wife at home with the kids, the trip just seems less and less like the great trip it seemed at the beginning. I think I still want to go. I just worry for myself and for my family…and through it all I keep asking myself how much of this is my self questioning going overboard for fee of troubling others? I know I will have fun on the trip, and I will see places I will probably never get to see again. I get to do it on somebody else’s dime too…and I feel guilty for all the trouble others will go through.
