Moving Furniture

It's one of those days, one of those dreary, damp grey days here in Calgary. It's raining, sort of, and has been for overnight. The sky is a sheet of low of low cloud and I can hear the squish of water under the tires of the cars and trucks passing by on the street outside my window. My patio rail drips as does the fir tree. It's just plain dull.

I feel that way too, a reflection of the weather perhaps. My shoulder continues to give me grief and my feet are swollen. I want to have a shower but the effort of getting into the bathroom, disrobing, transferring, cleaning, drying, re-dressing and exiting seems far too much for so little reward. I just don't feel like the fight. I am comfortably seated in my Ikea Phoang chair and I really see very little value in moving about. Perhaps later, when I need the bathroom for other reasons.

This morning I finally came to grips with the need to move my dresser. It sits opposite the end of my bed with a passage too narrow for my wheelchair. Either the bed has to move, the dresser has to move; one or the other must give way if I am to access both, or I live perpetually out of a laundry hamper. Up until the beginning of the summer I would sit on my bed and reach out to the dresser. I can no longer reach without the risk of falling off the bed. So now I must change things around to make it work.

Moving furniture is something of an issue when attempted from a wheelchair. I am sure someone with a higher degree of strength and energy could do it. I think I can but would rather not attempt it on my own. I will have to ask for help, something I am loathe to do. I hate asking for help.

My life has taught me that asking for help is a bad thing to do. It puts you at risk; it puts someone else in charge, in power. The person you ask might say "no", then where are you? Not only have you suffered the humiliation of rejection but you still have the original problem. Better to do it yourself and not risk the emotional damage. Better not to have someone else with power over the outcome of your life. Inevitably it turns out badly, at least it has for me.

So here I sit, looking at the rain, wondering how I will arrange my furniture and move it. You see, in the end I know that it is me on the hook. I am the only one riding this pony.