Feeling groovy

I have been reading one of those books I heaped scorn on a week or two back, you know, MS books and when Deb gave this to me, I thought "oh another book about people with MS". But now I finally got around to reading it and it is not as I expected.

The book, When the Road Turns: Inspirational Stories About People with MS by Margot Russell is just exactly what it says it is. These people do stuff, they have full time careers, they travel and they climb mountains and go to the South Pole. They are, almost without exception educated, financially secure and seem super-human in the face of something that makes it hard for me to drive 4kms to town when it's warm.

I would that I could say this book was empowering for me, but I can't. I found it to be the opposite in my financially rocky, single parent of teenagers, struggling to get through each day unscathed existence. Until a little piece not far from the end, by a man called Mark Brennan called "Living Well", which, instead of chronicling the physical accomplishments of individuals on their travels, celebrated the travels a Soul encounters as it journeys inwards through life with Multiple Sclerosis.

But all through it I found vindication, validation for the things that I feel, and the way I think. I saw that while I may feel at great variance with most of the people I associate with in some rather fundamental aspects, my footsteps mimic those who walk a path parallel to mine, every day.

Sometimes I cannot walk
so I sit
Sometimes I cannot sit
so I lie
Sometimes I cannot stay awake
so I sleep
Sometimes I cannot sleep
so I stay awake
No need to hurry
no need to wait
Mark Brennan

And his piece had more empowerment in it than the rest of this still terrific book put together.