Like A Rolling Stone

This blog should really be titled The Times They Are A-Changin' but I'd rather use my favourite Bob Dylan song instead. I'm sure I'll find a tenuous link as this goes on.

Humans are very good at adapting to change. We all originated from the same place (Africa or the Garden of Eden depending on how gullible you are) and we have spread throughout the world, living in different climates and with different diets. We'll probably even find a way to occupy ourselves now that the Olympics has finished. We're not always so good at making changes by choice though. We all have our habits and our routines and sometimes it is difficult to break these. (Like a rolling stone trying to change direction. Okay, that was crap. I'll try harder.)

I have quite an addictive personality. If I do something I enjoy or I think is good for me then I feel compelled to do it as often as possible. (My addiction is to exercise by the way. I realise an addiction to heroin or sex would make for better reading for you in the case of the former and indeed considerably more pleasurable living for me in the case of the latter.) I'm not particularly good at choosing to make a change (Why should I? I'm kinda great.) but being human I can adapt to forced change. That is something I never thought I could do when I was first diagnosed. This blog would have been a much less enjoyable read if I had started it two years ago. (Or much more unenjoyable depending on your opinions of it!) 

This is a poem I wrote in the first few months following my diagnosis. (It didn't take me months, I just can't put a date on it. It's pretty brilliant but not quite three month's work.)

I knew him once, a short time ago,
We drifted quickly, now time goes slow.

He was young, full of dreams,
I feel old, empty it seems.

I see him now on the other side,
I'm stood here held by the tide.
We'll meet again when I am free,
Once I was he now he is me.

Cheery eh? At that point I was in a much better physical condition than I am now but I was much less happy, much more scared. As far as I was concerned my life was over.

And now? I've adapted. I will never accept having MS in its current form but in the interim before I improve I can survive with it. I considered writing another verse to reflect my feelings now but I am more of a limerick man these days.

Then I could run and use a knife and fork,
I'm less able now but can joke and talk.

I hope to overcome this hex,

Be able to jump and have sex.

The best of both worlds, I will laugh and walk.

I'm still scared but I have hope which I did not have before. I can get back those things I miss doing so much but perhaps the person I was would never have developed into the person I am.

If we cannot choose to change then sometimes it is best if change is forced upon us. Maybe. If I get better! Times change, we must change with them.

'Like a Rolling Stone'? Right, Mick Jagger is a founding member of The Rolling Stones. Over the decades the lineup of the band has changed numerous times and often for the better. So it (Whatever 'it' is, bear with me I'm nearly finished.) is just like a Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger to be precise. Things change and you just have to ride with it. (His partner has changed numerous times and I imagine he has ridden all of them too.)

I promised you the link would be tenuous and you should know by now that it would also be nonsense.