I was thinking about how I don’t want to always write about MS. Because this is a blog centered around that, it always comes out. Sometimes it doesn’t even come out so I will go back and try to make some connection to MS and I add it in. The problem with the MS theme is that I always sound pathetic. Or whiny. Or dramatic. I don’t want to come across that way. Hence, I don’t want to talk about MS all the time.
Because MS is the sole focus of this blog, too many it comes across that THAT is the whole of my life. In a nutshell, that is the furthest thing from the truth. It represents a very small portion of who I am. I realized how I am grossly misrepresenting myself in these posts. My life is so full. Of family. Of laughter. Sometimes tears. Love. On the lowest rung of the ladder sits MS. So, why oh why am I talking about it?
Now that I am home, I am constantly with my children. My focus is parenting, and sometimes, but very rarely MS. Watching my children inspires love and laughter, frustration and tears. More laughter. I really think I should write more about this. I said this about a year ago—I don’t want MS to be the big, bold font of my life’s story. So, in keeping with that, I will try to focus more on my parental journey and less on MS. It can come up, peripherally. That is fine; but no more focusing on it.
Disclaimer. Can I add that at the end? Writing about MS was entirely necessary. In writing about it I learned more about myself. The theme of a story is the lesson learned. It was always very hard to teach my students this concept. Even with myself, when I write, I don’t know what my theme is. Something will be heavy on my heart and I will start typing. Usually by the end, the theme…what I have learned after connecting the dots…reveals itself to me.
In this way, every post I have written regarding MS has taught me something. It has delivered me a little further down the road (in regards to me understanding my disease) than I was before. Also, many of my friends had very little understanding of what MS was, or how it affected me. I didn’t want to be seen as dying or crippled, but I also wanted my friends and family to know what I pushed through on a daily basis. Living with MS is hard. For the people who suffer with this disease, and for myself, I wanted others to understand. I think I have accomplished that in my own small way.
So I put it out there. Glad I did. But maybe it is time to move on.
I bought The Happiness Project: or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen went to Yale undergrad and law school. She was the editor of the Yale Law Review. She worked on the U.S. Supreme Court with Sandra Day O'Connor. Even her in-laws are accomplished. Her father in law is Robert Rubin. Yes, that one. OK, I admit it, I had to look it up. Former treasurer of the U.S. under Clinton.
One day, on the bus ride across town, while taking her daughter to school, she realized she wasn't happy. She wasn't NOT happy either. She wouldn't call what she was going through a mid-life crisis, but maybe more of a mid-life malaise. She would stress and sweat over taking her daughter to school. Everyday her daughter would take her time, and marvel at the treasures in the pharmacy window. Gretchen would be short and snippy and rush her. It hit her on this bus that this was her daughter growing up. Someday she would be grown and on her own and Gretchen was wasting this time being ungrateful.
This was the moment The Happiness Project was born. After a couple years experimenting with every known scientific, philosophical, whateverical theory on how to be happy, The Happiness Project was published. It has been sitting on the NY Times Bestseller List for quite sometime now.
Like Gretchen, I don't want to waste my time being ungrateful, I would rather spend it on savoring my children. Happiness and how we feel is a decision. Studies say that 50% of how we look at life is genetic. If this is true, there's a whole lot of percentage left that we can control. In many ways we are what we think. And who we surround ourselves with. And what we read. Hence, I don't want to always think about MS. I want to think about how happy I am being mother to these two awesome kids, and wife to (just) one awesome husband. I will let everything else fall in line from there.
Click here to follow Gretchen's blog. Check it out...it is so inspiring. I check it daily now.
Anyone want to jump on board and read this book with me? Oh, and does anyone have an awesome Halloween cookie recipe they want to share?
