Interesting though, considering the shape I’m in. Oh… sorry… let me introduce myself. My name is Paul and I’m a sarcasta-holic… Yup… that’s me. Sarcasm out the wazoo… It’s my defense mechanism. Life is really hard and sometimes we need to just let it loose.
I know we all have rough times and I’m certainly not trying to compare myself to anyone else. Part of my rough road is due to my struggles with my health… migraines, fibromyalgia, multiple chemical introlerance, GERD, ADHD, being generally weird… you know… life. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m off on some rabbit trails now and again.
Jo (my wife) and I just returned from a trip out to BC to see our son and his wife and drop off their cats. It was a wonderful time… even got a chance to visit Jo’s sister and her family and with one of my best friends online. We put about 5600km on the truck and, well, just plumb wore ourselves out.
So, now I lay here thinking, just what makes throwing caution to the wind and spending your spoons like an energy gabillionaire so worth it? Because, that’s just plain what we did. Rolling down the road, sleeping in our truck, eating fast food like it’s some sort of travel health plan. Not sure if we’re insane or brilliant.
The thing is that my heart says, “wow, was that ever a good trip” and that puts it into the brilliant category as far as I’m concerned. It wasn’t exactly a cheap trip… a whole lot cheaper than flying and renting but still, gas doesn’t grow on trees and our old Acadia sips pretty hard at times. Still, I got to spend time with my kids, I got to catch up with my brother-in-law that I never get to see because he works so darned much… (love you Chris!)… and then I got to meet my brother from another mother. Let me tell you about it…
Todd is awesome. His health has forced him to walk away from more amazing careers than I will ever have. He is the sort of guy that you pour your heart out to and seem to have known all your life. I met him on a wonderful website that caters to guys suffering with fibromyalgia… you might have heard of it… Menwithfibro.com?? Well… check it out. It’s a good place to be when your life is coming down around your ears. Todd joined a few years ago and instantly became a staple of our core group. Insta-family… just add batteries.
Well.. Todd lives way out in BC, and we live halfway through Manitoba. Let’s just say visiting wasn’t going to be an easy proposition. Fortunately, my son and his sweet lady decided to move to Cranbrook last year. So, on a whim… ok… it was a really big whim but I digress… on a whim we decided to do a big circle through Alberta and back into BC and do all our visiting while I could still hold a steering wheel. If you ever get a chance to do a trip like this, trust me… just do it. Meeting your best friend for the first time is so awesome.
Now, for fibro-folk, we have to be really careful how we spend our energy. (just ignore the fact that we had already driven more miles than was wise) so when we got to Todd’s place, we took things as slow as possible. No exertions, no overwhelming our hosts, no… oh bah… we stayed up way later than was smart and poor Todd and I barely made it to a standing position the next day, but it was so worth it. I know it was only a short visit from a traditional standpoint but, the Lord knew I needed smarts so He gave me a smart wife who set the visiting parameters and helped me realize we were throwing our candles into the fire.
Somehow, we survived our little jaunt and I’m back in my comfy bed trying desperately to be comfy. I guess the moral of the story is, saving your spoons for when you need them is smart, but sometimes your soul just needs to spend them like a wild person to get the kind of amazing journeys that it needs to stay fresh and alive.
To all my spoonies out there, gotcha in my thoughts and prayers. Keep your stick on the ice.
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