Nobody learns without getting it wrong…..

Life is more difficult to negotiate these days. The ground and I had to stop meeting like that, so now I have a walker. My full time job these days is not caring for others as a nurse, but instead a nurse fills my mediset to help me keep from hurting myself with my memory problems.

I am trying hard to care for myself, negotiate the multiple systems in place to “help” me maintain my independence. Besides no longer working, I no longer drive, I no longer read, think, talk or understand at the ability I expect of myself. Everything takes longer than I expect and my best is often not good enough, fast enough for people waiting, not knowledgeable enough for people asking, not coherent enough for those listening and writing and deciding my future.

So yes, life is more difficult to negotiate these days, and when I face a new loss, like today, I get sad and irritable. Thanks to a good helping of Cognitive Behavior Therapy I have tools to help cope with the grief, acknowledge the anger, and accept my powerlessness over external things, instead of being depressed, hopeless and helpless.

Do I cry, yes. Do I write how unfair life can be in my venting journal, yes. Tools to cope are not magic wands that make it all peaceful in my head and heart. My tools of humor, persistence, courage and compassion don’t suddenly transform this shit in my life back into a feast; but processing loss, change and anger provide the fertilizer in which my next great moment will grow.

But more than just trying to live longer, I am still striving to live out loud.

In the interest of trying everything, I am trying prescribed adaptive sports. I still paint, still keep this blog. Still play music. Still cruise FB, Pinterest, etc. I am more likely to leave an emoji than a full fledged comment these days, and recently I thinned my media friends list again so that I can pay more attention to those most important to me without being overwhelmed, but I am proud to stay in the cyber world where change happens at the speed of light.

It’s not that I am great at any of it.

But then failure has always been an option for me, hence a life bigger than anything I expected. I would rather try my best and be last than stand on the sidelines and wonder if I could.

“Look how far you’ve come…..

I won’t give up, No, I won’t give in, til I reach the end then I’ll start again.”

Namaste folks.

Off to sleep so I can get up tomorrow and keep making those new mistakes…

And I totally think Shakira should sing at my funeral party. Don’t you?

Me at my last triathlon, to inspire me to do my first adapted one before I can’t!!!