In a heartbeat

About two years ago, I was struggling in my life, feeling overwhelmed and tired. How would I pay all these bills? How could I get my daughter to dance practice on time and still get things finished at work? Where would I find the energy to cook supper tonight when I was already exhausted? You see, I was only focused on the negative. It had become so easy to do this; it was as if self-pity had become my drug of choice.

Then I ran across this short blog when I was helping my daughter do her research on the internet. It's very short, and there wasn't much background information about the person who wrote it. It simply stated that it was from a sixteen-year-old named Tatum, who was dying of cancer. Tatum reminded me not to take my life for granted:
Some of the things I’m going to miss when I’m gone:
My family.
My dog’s kisses.
The swing on the tree in the garden.
The smell of my mom’s peach pie.
The first fire my dad makes every winter.
The feel of my grandpa’s sweaters.
They are always so soft.

Dominoes Pizza.
The Dominoes Pizza delivery guy. (Who is also my best friend Wes.)
Hot chocolate on a cold night.

Opening presents on Christmas morning.
The smell of bacon.
Laughing so hard my cheeks hurt.
Lying in the field behind our house and listening to the beat of my heart.

Thank you Tatum!
May we all cherish the times we can laugh til our cheeks hurt.
I will hold your sweetness in my heart. Always.

On Brevity - No Really

Now that I have MS, one of my major issues is that when I am talking to someone (or listening to someone speak or watching something on TV or reading something) if they don't get right to the point of their story, lesson, question, demonstration, etc. I will mentally take them to the finish line.

I make an educated guess at what they are talking about and what response they need or want from me, mentally tuck it away (if it is a work related or complex issue I jot it down on paper) and then my mind just sort of "leaves the building." I'm thinking about other things.

Is this fatigue? Cognitive dysfunction? Straight on brain damage? A little bit of all three? I don't know. What I do know it that this is really becoming a serious social issue for me in certain circumstances. It's hard not to look disinterested and therefore rude when you are not giving someone 100% of your attention. And not everyone I interact with knows that I have a chronic illness. I certainly don't advertise it. And as you can imagine that I don't want to make them think they have to try harder to capture my attention, or speak to me any differently.

So I have to pray for the occasional blessedly terse, strightforward speaker. Otherwise, I try to silently change the channel without offending. Maybe this is what happens with Alzheimer's. A person gets to the point where they change the channel, then they forget how to switch it back to where they started. So they kind of get lost in the static in between.