Feeling lost

I’ve been feeling really lost lately.  I feel great in terms of my MS and my weight but there is still something missing.  I feel like I have lost myself.  What does that mean?  Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that question, for months now to be honest.  My husband has been encouraging me to look for a job for quite sometime now.  I’m not going to lie, it’s both scary and exciting at the same time.  I’m excited because I think it would help me get myself back to my “old” self before the diagnosis and all of what the MS has done to me emotionally but I’m scared because of the MS.  I’m not really scared that I won’t be able to do anything that I think is a good fit for me but finding that fit is a challenge.  I’ve been going back and forth lately on some different ideas in terms of work.  I’m enjoying writing these blogs to not only help me, because it is very cathartic, but also I’m helping others.  I have been lucky to receive some emails from people I know and some that I have never met, telling me how much my blogs are resonating with them.  Total strangers are writing me telling me how I’m not alone in some of the feelings I have been expressing and that’s a great feeling.  That I’m inspiring them by being so honest and the transformations that my husband and I have made in each other by losing over 230 lbs combined is inspiring.

I’ve been going through a tough time the past few days and I’ve been trying to reflect on my life and doing what I want to do. Not what other people think I should do, but what I want!  Frankly, I don’t know.  It’s like that old saying, “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up” well that’s me lately.  I don’t know.  I was laying in bed the other morning thinking about stuff.  It was cloudy out and unseasonably warm so I was trying to think of something to do with the kids or on my own.  I was talking to a friend of mine and then it hit me, I’m going to go to Church.  Now, I hate to bring up religion because it can be such a hot topic with people but that’s what I felt I needed to do.  I felt like something was pulling me there.  I got up, dressed and went off to church alone.  I sat in a pew by myself, and as crazy as this sounds, tried to talk to God in my thoughts.  I kept asking over and over again for guidance.  Please help guide me to the place you want me to be. The place He knows where I need to be.  I’m sure this sounds crazy to some people but I feel like when I get lost in life or get off “track” that going to church helps ground me.  I know not everyone believes in this and that’s ok, I’m not asking you too, I’m just telling you how I feel and what I need to do.

After Mass ended, I was still sitting in the pew, with my head down, trying to muster up the energy to get up and walk out and then I heard a familiar voice.  A friend of mine who I have come to admire and adore.  I just looked up at him as he sat there with me, and I started to tear up and said, “I’m lost.  I feel so lost lately.”  He was so comforting.  He sat there with me for quite some time listening to me talk, he held my hand which is what I needed from a friend at that moment.  There has always been a special connection, I feel with this friend. We have been through similar situations in life.  When we first met, he was going through a tough time and I would listen to him.  He had injured himself at work and couldn't work anymore. He had and still does, constant pain and some depression.  Of course, with MS, I could totally relate.  He told me that there is a reason people come into our lives at the moments God knows we need help or guidance.  He happened to come to church today alone, without his wonderful family and he didn’t see me until the end and he felt like I needed a friend and boy was he correct.  He was great.  We sat there and talked.  He helped me muster up the energy to get up and get out of there.  We talked about so many different things.  That all the suffering we go through is worth it. That something great will come out of all this suffering but getting there is the challenge, the strength, the fight that you need to keep going.

As we were leaving, we ran into another person who I would call a friend.  Every time I see her, she always says kind spiritual words, gives me hugs and blesses me.  She looked at me and right away gave me a hug and could tell I was suffering from something.  So we all started talking.  She is from the Philippines and, although her family is safe, she is saddened by how much her country is suffering.  She is determined to find a way to help.  She is an amazingly strong woman.  She is organizing a food drive to send over food and supplies to her country and is looking for volunteers to help her get this done.  As we were all talking, my other friend was very excited to hear this and told her he would be there with his family to  help.  I sat there and listened and started thinking to myself, what an inspiration she is.  She is going through some of her own struggles and yet finds time to reach out and help others, strangers.  As she was sharing some of her story with us it dawned on me, we all have our own struggles, it’s just a matter of how we handle them.  Do we give up, throw in the towel and move on or do we pick our head up and keep trying, keep working through our own struggles.  That’s a tough question to ask yourself.  I’ve been told that I am a strong person, and through the weight loss and working out again, I agree.  I am a strong person but I’m a strong person that has let her MS sometimes stop her.  That is a hard thing for me to admit, actually it was a hard thing for me to write.  MS does stop me, as strong as I am, I have let it get in the way of so many opportunities or even chances that have come my way.

She is someone who I would say is a true inspiration, and I have been told lately, that I am an inspiration.  I have a hard time trying to come to terms with that for me.  I mean, what have I really accomplished?  Along with the help and encouragement of my husband, I have lost over 90 lbs and have been working out on a weekly basis.  I know that I have heard the words before that Chris and I are an inspiration from all that we have accomplished and it finally hit me, like a frying pan to the face, we are a true inspiration.  We have helped encourage others to take this healthy journey with us.  My aunt and cousin are good examples.  They have both changed their eating and exercise habits for the better.  Our blogs that we share with everyone are an inspiration.  I used to think that if I can help only 1 person with either their MS or their weight struggles, then  it will be worth it opening up like this but now I’m greedy.  I want to help people change their lives like Chris and I did.  He has already taken the steps to do this but now I need to take them.  I know that I already am with my blogs but maybe what I need to do is look into a way that I can reach out and help people in a different capacity along with the blogs.  Maybe that is what I’m supposed to do when I grow up.