Dipping into my fuel reserves

Now Playing: Courtyard Hounds

It’s so warm outside. It seems like a cliché but I really do feel a smidge happier when spring arrives. The Earth is waking up and she wants you to come out and play. Today I answered her call and spent a good portion of the afternoon out in the sunshine. In Budd Lake I usually rolled up to the picnic table on the edge of our driveway but alas, no such table here in Awesomedale (like what I did there?!) and so I have created a new tradition of popping the back hatch of my car and hanging out by the bumper. This way I have somewhere to rest my beverage or even hide in the shadow the car provides when the sun is being just a little too friendly. I’ve long had a love/hate relationship with the sun. Every summer I would plunk down on the sand and recklessly taunt the sun with my super-white, sunblock-free skin. This was, of course, followed by a yearly scorching lobster shell sunburn and my solemn vow to never be so stupid again! Indeed, my lifelong search for ‘just a base’ remains unrealized.

I find myself at an impasse of my own making...I’ve had lots of ideas about how to continue my growth here at Crescent Commons but in classic procrastinator fashion, I often find it difficult to convert ideas to actions. I keep waiting for a spark of energy to propel me in some sort of direction but I think my power reserves were depleted over Easter. It’s yet another crappy ‘perk’ to MS-if by some miracle I find the energy to join the activities I feel entitled to and deserve to enjoy, I’m very likely to ‘crash and burn’ in the days/weeks that follow. Enter Liana’s overly introspective thought of the week: Am I foolish to ride such a roller coaster when it would be wise to sit back and watch? Observing life from the sidelines may be the wise choice when it comes to energy (and sanity) conservation, but it gets awfully lonely. And so it continues -I dig into my fuel reserves and rally to life but almost always at the cost of my strength thereafter. How horrifying for me, a decidedly extroverted person, to spend my adult years passing on fun in deference to safety. I know I’ve been getting better at taking chances and not retreating to a hole when something bad happens, be it a fall or a mortifying bathroom incident. Mind you, when I say ‘fall’ I don’t just get up again I need police and rescue personnel to get up again. And the latter ‘incident’ seems self-explanatory but trust me-bathroom issues aren’t easily overcome either physically or mentally.

So here I sit, replete with ideas but anchored by fear and intimidation. How about you folks? When you find yourself shying away from life, how do you kick your own butt back into gear?

How appropriate at this moment that my ears get caught up in the closing lyric of the song playing:

“The feeling’s very strange

I’m waiting for the pain

And happiness can terrify me now

And you may ask me why I’m that way

It’s just the fear of wasted time”

GAH! Song lyrics to me are like verses of the Bible must be to the truly faithful-beautiful and sometimes confusing words that always come together and make your soul smile- in happiness, understanding, or even both.