containment.

isn’t it strange when one starts seeing connections all over the place…?

this week, everyone I have talked with is discussing the same topic. crazy. that has been happening week after week, and on a variety of topics.

so this week circled around three conversations with friends and the new support group on the five stages of grief. and I didn’t bring up the topic! ha!

I never studied grief in such detail back in college for my psych-o degree!

it did not occur to me until Tuesday night, that I have been cycling and jumping all over the five stages of grief during the last seven months.

hovering over acceptance at this time. or at least that’s what I keep telling myself – ha! I can already see full acceptance on the horizon. it’s very close. according to my therapist, the first year is the hardest. yep, I would agree with that.

but I have been bouncing back and forth between bargaining. with some crying here and there. usually when faced head-on with the reality of living with MS and how much my life has changed. how much I have changed. I’ll get used to it, that I do know.

though the crying is not as often as it was in the beginning, when it was daily. my poor hub!! ha! no, really…the crying was/is all me.

I am approaching my six month mark. being a day that I will not personally forget…I am making a commitment to myself and to others, to scale back on my MS talk and contain it to the MS compartment of my daily life (though, to be clear…without stuffing it completely…because that doesn’t do any good! though#2, if anyone asks, I will share :-).

I will contain MS for the following reasons…

a. I want to will keep my hub.

b. I want to will keep my friends. and continue to make new ones.

c. I want to be am more interesting than my MS.

sidebar>;>;though this intention will may be hard this month, between doctor’s appointments…and reading our book club book, Awkward B*tch: My Life with MS. written by a woman, my age, same story…I know how it goes…I just don’t want to belabor my story during our book club discussion. instead my intention is that it will be good to talk about this woman’s journey with MS. not mine. I have watched the author’s youtube videos. she is one cool girl. works @ DKNY in London. how rockin’ is that? and wrote a book. even more rockin’! she and her hub moved from the East Coast to London to reinvent themselves. unfortunately, MS decided to also help with the re-invention. but she persevered. her name is marlo donato parmelee if you’re interested in googling her.

since I joined a new support group – all my MS conversation can occur during that time. and with my therapist. and my doctors. grateful that I have a such a great wellness team! but, I will keep you peeps updated when if there are any new developments.

last night, I read through my journal from last year. and discovered when it appears my active lesion flared up – June – even though the sensory and other symptoms didn’t arrive until end of July. my handwriting took a severe turn for the worse. I can’t even read most of what I wrote down last year. but from June on – it’s completely illegible. it’s still that way! now, I type when I journal. much easier for re-reading…! and I have the auto-search function, which is quite handy. along with spell-check – yeah!

I can contain my MS to the page…

every day is an opportunity to uncover something new about myself, my life…my world. our world.

xo