Giving up vs letting go

Those who know me well, know there isn't anything in my life that has come easily. It was this fact that that got me motivated when I was pregnant with my daughter, completely paralysed on my left side and laying in a hospital ward. My Mother said, “Pamela, when you were born you had a 1 and a 100 chance of living...” she never got to finish the sentence. I responded with, “Yes those 99 are dead, and I lived, so I should make the best of it, life owes me nothing.” It wasn't exactly where she was going, but it motivated me so who cares.

I am an MS Warrior. I fight every day. A lot of days people wouldn't know anything was wrong. That even though I'm smiling, there are terrible things happening in my body, soul and mind. I don't give up. I can't, I won't, I don't know how. I think giving up is easy. To submit to an enemy that is so overwhelming is a lot easier than fighting a loosing battle.

There is a difference between giving up and letting go. There are lots of thing that I have had to let go of because of MS. It's the letting go that is hard for me. Ambitions I once had are no longer possible. Plans and goals for myself have long been abandoned. Sometimes I held out hope for so long my fingers didn't want to let go of them. But inevitably I had to. It's the letting go that is hard. I haven't given up.

But still I dream. These things I have had to let go I still dream of them. I close my eyes and hear the roar of the wind and the jump master screaming “JUMP RUN” and my mouth still gets dry. I'm still for a moment and I can almost feel the lean of my motorcycle and the feeling of wanting to ride down endless roads. I remember the feeling of freedom my scooter gave me as I tried to keep up with traffic. I recall the feeling of accomplishment I got from being paid to help people, knowing I did a good job.

But it's more than that, I hear the laughter of all the family and the children I never had, wake up and hold my daughter more tightly in my arms. I hear the music of the band I was in that never was and play alone for just me. I dream of the career that might have been, the life that might have been, and the person I might have become. Sometimes I dream of the arms that hold me that will never be.

MS has taken a lot from me. I fight, I don't give up, I dream. I let go of things, even though it's hard.

Life is hard. It would be easy to give up on it. It's much harder to let it go a piece at a time. I fight to the bitter end because that's just who I am.