She Ain't Heavy...

I bought a little IPOD shuffle and a waterproof case with waterproof earplugs. If I am going to be confined to a wheelchair, I need my exercise so as soon as I’m well I intend to water walk every day whilst I listen to my tunes. I cleaned my ITunes out of any random music that I didn’t want to hear on the shuffle since a) I can’t control the buttons on the shuffle by myself and b) I don’t want to hear karaoke versions of Copacabana, toilet flush and gunshot sound effects or yoga lessons while I water walk. While I was cleaning up the tunes I came across a recording of my ex singing a song he had written. His voice sounded sweet and to my surprise I was reminded of the fact that I used to love him very much. It’s so easy to forget that when someone has exhausted all your good will, but there it is. I did love him. Part of me wants so much to invent a past in which I never loved him but I did. Life is messy like that.

There is very little in my life that isn’t full of complications and contradictions and so much effort goes into accepting all of it – the hilarious heartache - the tragic farce. Wendy and I were marveling today at all the hits I’ve taken in the past couple of weeks, yet how quickly I’ve bounced back. Can’t walk? Fine, I’ll go to the pool. Doesn’t work out with a guy I like? Move on. I’m taking the hits and playing rope-a-dope with ALS or the gods or maybe myself, I don’t know. I don’t have time to stay depressed – it’s life in the fast lane (remember that song by the Eagles? “She was terminally pretty…”)

But still the complexity of it all challenges me. I want to be able to make a certain sense and order out of my life like how Kris swoops in to the chaos that is my apartment to organize and label my shelves and drawers. Life is not so simple though and there are things that don’t seem to fit into any large category in my mind, relationships I will no doubt go to the grave without having resolved and things I will never fully understand try as I might to get a handle on them.

What I do know is: it’s another gorgeous day. I’m pain-free. My son is growing up to be the most interesting and committed man. I have the best group of friends that exist in the known universe. I have a family I love that loves me very much and tells me so in no uncertain terms. I’m blessed with a helium spirit and I choose to be happy.

Yesterday Kathy was trying to figure out how to get me into a house they are looking at for me. It is not yet ramped so it would require someone to carry me in to see it. We discovered that Mac can carry me around with great ease. How strange. For years I carried him around and now he is cooking me dinners, helping me with bottles and even lifting me up. There was something oddly comforting about it – when I go, I will leave a strong and capable man behind who happens to be my baby but who is ready and able to carry this weight.