A Standing Ovation

I am beginning to get worried by my legs.

Often over the past month, I’ve had a lot of trouble standing up. I can stand, that’s not the problem really. It’s more being able to stay standing.

I have to use something to pull myself up so that I can get in that standing position, so that I can pull myself upright. I can feel my legs spasming at the very thought, the very notion and I know that no matter what I do they will protest.

Loudly.

Once I am standing, I feel as if I’m going to fall, as if I am falling forward. I imagine the ground rushing up to meet me, hard and fast like a one night stand.

It frightens me a lot more than I care to admit that I’m losing control over my body. I once thought that if I just kept going, just kept going, like that little engine that chugged so bravely up that hill, that I would be okay.

That everything would be fine.

Part of dealing with a disability is to ignore it, I think. To pretend that it doesn’t exist and prove others wrong by doing the opposite of what they say. According to doctors and therapists I’ve had, I’m supposed to be in a wheel chair.

I will not let them put me in one.

But I wonder if, to some degree, they were right when they said that there would come a time where I could not walk. I do not want such a time to visit me, I want it to stay as far away from me as possible, if you please.

I know that my legs are not as strong as they once were, that the spasms are happening more frequently, that I’m less and less comfortable, no matter what I do. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t ignore it anymore, where the pain I was so blithely able to push away is now fighting me with a vengeance.

I am not going down without a fight, however. I refuse. I won’t let it happen.

All I have to do is take things one day at a time, one step at a time and hope, hope, hope that the next step I take won’t be as painful as the one before.

Holiday Thoughts

It’s been too long since I’ve updated this blog but not for lack of trying. Life just seems to get in the way of things, especially when you’re busy. What with the Holidays upon us, it’s little wonder that I’ve had no time to post.

 

I have been hard at work on the edits for my memoir titled One Step at a Time. It’s going to be published by The Friday Project in the summer of 2008. Thankfully the edits are almost done and I will be back to a regular posting schedule in the new year.

 

While the writing of the memoir has been difficult, it’s been the most rewarding of tasks to delve into it, to give my life a shape on paper when I can only remember it in pictures, little snapshots. My eyes are the lens and my brain is the camera, capturing images for prosperity.

 

The Holidays always help me remember bits and pieces of my past that I otherwise would have forgotten. I remember the smells of baking, the songs I used to sing. I remember baking with my grandmother, wrapping gifts with my mother.

 

While I’ve been editing my memoir and going through the pieces of my life I’ve sewn together, the memoirs have become stronger, become more concrete and less blurry. It’s been the weirdest experience looking at my life with a fine tooth comb, knowing that others are going to read about it in a short time.

 

I’m always amazed at the things that I’m able to remember. Sounds, music, little mental pictures that float to the surface like treasures. Especially around the Holidays I’m reminded of family, of togetherness, of companionship.

 

When I have those things around the Holidays, the pain in my legs doesn’t matter, the spasms in my back don’t hold any meaning for me. Because I know that, with a little luck, love and perseverance, anything is possible.