Salt is Not the Spice of Life’s Blog

Do you remember back in the day when MTV actually played music videos? They had this show called MTV Unplugged. Artists would come on and play acoutically their music. It was raw, it was open, it was vunerable, it was beautiful. There wasn’t any behind the scenes electronic sounding board that could cover up their vocals. You got to hear who they were, and more often than not, you got the chance to see and feel the artist in their music. Hence, why I think it was beautiful. I miss that show.

Here recently there is a commercial for the AJC advertising their new Sunday edition. It has a couple sitting on the couch and all of their cell phones start going off and you see emails coming in. The commercial says to unplug, turn off your phones, it’s Sunday so just relax (and enjoy the new Sunday edition of the AJC). But the point behind it is good – just unplug. Like the old MTV show – you have everything unplugged and its just you.

That is why I have been absent this last week. I’ve needed to just unplug and relax. As you guys know there has been a lot on my shoulders. And there still is. But what I found is that I was concentrating a lot of my energy in areas that I cannot control – wasted energy that turns into negative energy. And by unplugging, we’ve cut off the electric current to that. See, everyone kept telling me to just “let go”. And while I know everyone’s heart was in the right place, you have to understand that there are some things  I can’t just let go of — my heart. With MS, the reality of my disease getting worse meant me being in a wheelchair. Over time, I came to a serene peace with that because MS could never take away my mind, which is where my strength is, and MS could never kill me. With heart failure, the reality of the disease getting worse is something I don’t know if I am ready to face. (if I am truly being honest here…). But its something I am working on.

And in the past, if there was something I wanted to do, an activity, then I could train and in a month be prepared to do it. Some cases it took a little longer. (I’m sorry but you can’t train and be ready to ride the MS 150 in a month. It just doesn’t happen). However, now, if I wanted to do that same activity that used to take me a month to prepare for, now it could very well take me three years. And in my mind I took that as a sign of failure. It took me “unplugging” to realize that I have been looking at this all wrong. Yes this is a fight. Yes this is a daily battle against reality I aim to win. But the fact that I am still willing to tackle that activity (whatever it may be), and still give it a try even if it takes me 3 years is a sign of preserverance, not failure. Failure now is if I totally throw in the towel.

And it took me “unplugging” to realize that there are some things you can control, and the ones you can’t – you just let go. Those are the items I need to let go of. Alot of these items I can’t control were adding serious stress in my life. I can’t control the fact that my company laid me off. What I can control is what I am doing to find employment, insurance, etc. And there is some of this I just have to leave in God’s hands. I can’t control the fact there is a member of my family who doesn’t want to acknowledge my existance, doesn’t want me in their lives, doesn’t care whether or not I am even alive (and yes they know I have heart failure, they know I was back in the hospital again in March, they know that my heart continues to get worse). I can’t make somebody love me, even if they are a family member. What I can control is that no matter what, I love them. And if they decide one day they want a relationship, then I am here. The rest – I have to just let go.

Unplugging for me is an attempt to slow my mind down. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m slowly getting there. The reality for me is that my mind has always operated at 200mph and never stopped, I stay stressed out and get worked up about things/issues. All of this was/is sending poisonous darts directly to my heart. And after the last doc’s appointment, it became a top priority to unplug. Now the key is staying unplugged!! Ha!

You have to go thru the darkness to see the light. Over the last month I was in some serious darkness trying to deal with everything my doctor laid on me (its honestly not something I am ready to write about fully). To say I was freaked out honestly doesn’t do any justice to the word. By unplugging, I found something that had been missing in my life over the last month – my smile and my laugh! So watchout people – its back!! Could be a very dangerous thing for Atlanta!! 🙂

In all seriousness, I ask for you guys to be patient with me. This whole thing is a work in progress. There is some good and some bad. While lately there has been more bad, I am going to make it a point to remember to showcase the good as well. If for no other reason, because I need to remember its still there.

My Dad summed things up perfectly after my doctor’s appointment. He just simply said, “This not tournament Daniel-son.” And I have to keep remembering that. I am not training for this tournament to showcase my skills for a brief moment in time. I am in this for the long-haul, no matter how long that takes me. (and for anyone reading this that does not know what movie that line is from, shame on you! You need to make it a Blockbuster night!!)

So everyone, raise your glasses with me:
Cheers to unplugging
Cheers to smiling
And here’s to many, many more laughs!

This entry was posted on May 24, 2009 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Unplugged. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.