Onion of Time

The past week can only be described as crazy.  Crazy fun getting to enjoy the special people in my life while throwing me into a crazy blur of confusion 😉

Our little townhouse/condo has three bedrooms. One is occupied by our roommate and the other is set up as a  quasi office/computer room. The main bedroom has our bed.  So what the heck do you do with three adults and one teenager guests?

When Billy, Trish, and Brandon stay they usually just pump up the air mattress and move the coffee table over and crash in the living room. Add Anthony to the mix and the situation gets a bit more cluttered. We found our other air mattress and Anthony graciously dealt with the cluster f mess in the computer room.  Sleeping situation solved we still had the logistics of everyone cramped into our small cluttered home. Eek gads.

Billy and Trish were here with the goal to help us clear out our large storage space. KRP is a pack rat and getting her to let go of anything is like pulling teeth. My goal was to find one box that I knew was in there somewhere containing things from both my grandmothers, my childhood memorabilia, and family photos.  Brandon’s goal was to go fishing and shop for fishing equipment while Anthony wanted to call everyone he could think of before he left country.

After two days of going through box after box the storage unit is empty – Yeah!  Clearing it out was like peeling an onion marking the times of our lives.  The deeper in we got the older the stuff.  Near the end I found myself getting in kind of a funk.  It was hard enough dealing with the fact that I was not able to help much with the physical aspects that come with humping boxes and boxes out and going through them and added to that I was looking at photos and mementos of what I used to be, what I used to do. Very in my face reality of how MS has changed my life along with getting older. Peeling onions does make your eyes water.

Now everyone is gone and the boxes of pictures etc. are freaking here more clutter, more crap to navigate around UGH.  Trish will help me next weekend try and get them put away but until then . …

I hung in there and made myself participate.  To the bass pro shop in Manteca, hunting for football jerseys for Ryan at second hands stores, getting the boat out of storage, going to Marysville to watch the races, all things I enjoy but I am exhausted as I kind of thought I would be.  Today walking is a chore, my brain is in dumb dumb mode, and I am generally down for the count.

It scares me that in future onion peels I might not be able to participate, that no matter how hard I try or force myself I will not get to share in the fun things.  I don’t want to be remembered as the stick in the mud who was pushed around in a wheel chair but as the one who took us fishing, camping, and was fun to be around.

My onion peel from last night will show me screaming and cursing at the races, betting on the winners and the losers, letting the kiddo buy the sodas and keep the change (a family tradition) the elephant was there but all of us managed to ignore it.  Super to have great family and friends – suck- o to have multiple sclerosis.