So March is MS Awareness month. An entire month devoted to intentionally raising awareness about MS, as opposed to the other 11 months when raising awareness is purely accidental. Rather than the usual “please don't tell me how good I look” post, I thought I'd try something different.
Before I do, though, I have to ask you some questions. While looking for a picture to go along with my post, many of the MS Awareness month pictures had the caption "With awareness, there is hope". Does that mean without awareness, there is no hope? For me to have hope, does every single person in the world need to be aware of MS? Must they be aware of MS in general, or my MS? No offense to the author, but I think we could have done much better.
Thanks for indulging me. Now to resume my regularly scheduled blog.
I want to list what I consider to be the positive things I learned from having MS. This will unquestionably put the spotlight and pressure on Pollyanna, huh? Here we go, in no particular order:
I've learned how to prioritize what (who) is important. Of course, I have to make revisions every so often, but it helps me focus.
I've learned to be more tolerant of people. Being so forgetful, fatigued, and having a general feeling of malaise most of the time has helped me to overlook a lot. That said, when I've had my limit, I've had my limit.
I've learned to recognize my limits and respect them. Most of the time. When my body or brain says, “enough”, I try to chill a bit. Unless I'm driving or in the middle of the grocery store. Wegmans doesn't have a napping area. Wouldn't that be something? That might be an idea for another post right there.
I've learned that being tolerant of people includes being tolerant of my shortcomings, too. That does not mean that I have given up, but as someone who is a perfectionist at heart, I've become more accepting of my best effort. If it falls short of what I call perfection, c'est la vie. I used to say something like good enough isn't good enough. Now, sometimes good enough is good enough.
I've learned that when someone says “you look really good” or “I would never know you were sick” I need to take it as the compliment people intend it to be and not get indignant about having MS.
I've learned that along with being tolerant of people and accepting compliments, I need to be less judgy. As I well know, simply because a person looks fine does not mean they are fine. Just like that inspirational meme you see every so often that goes something like, “Be kind because everyone is fighting a hidden battle”, I try to overlook many things. Again, though, when I reach my limit, I'm done. I am after all, only human.
I've learned how strong I actually am. Even when no one else knows what it takes for me to complete a task, I know. I can tell myself that I'm a badass for doing it all the while knowing my own body is trying to take me out.
I've learned to be proud of what I can accomplish. Another meme you see sporadically that I relate to goes something like this, “Just because someone doesn't see your value, never forget your worth”.
I've learned that no one is me. By that I mean I've tried to stop saying things like “if I can do it, you can do it” or conversely, “if they can do it, I can do it”. No. Everyone has their own limits. Sometimes you can push through them, sometimes you can't. Everyone is different, every day is different. Still, sometimes I make an extra effort, and sometimes, I expect others to make an extra effort as well. Again, I am human.
A while back, I read about the Japanese art of Kintsugi. It's basically taking something broken, and using the imperfections to make something more beautiful. Going back to the “knowing your worth” philosophy, no matter how broken we are, aren't we all more precious than pottery?
