Dance

A few years ago ... before the diagnosis ... I decided that I'd been told not to dance long enough. So I talked some friends into coming along for the ride and I began to dance. At first, free-style and fun ... then I decided I wanted to do some of the cool things I saw other people doing ... and signed up for lessons. Of course, by the time I reached that point, I had officially been told that I had MS ... and had some (very minor) balance issues when I became excessively tired or overheated. I began slow ... with waltz and some social/ballroom kind of stuff. Then some country ... and then some Latin. There is a distinct hum in the background - the sound of dozens of people saying 'can't' or 'shouldn't' - the naysayers. But do you know how much fun I'm having? Do you realize that three or four nights a week I get a work-out that is not at all boring or unpleasant? Do you understand that I'm living life and squeezing every second of joy from it that I can? Do you see that I refuse to allow a moment of life pass by unlived? So I will never win a dance competition ... instead I'll laugh and make friends and treasure the moments. And, as they say ... "Dance like no one is watching." :)

"I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible. I choose to risk my significance. To live so that which comes to me as seed ... goes to the next as blossom. And that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit."

How many moments of your life do you allow to drift by unused because of the MS label?