Am I Negative?

I've been told that my blog entries have been a bit depressing of late. One of my buddies told me I had to stop writing all that "dark shit"; another suggested that I had been awfully negative. When my daughter came over yesterday we talked about it as well, the tone and content of my thoughts and words.

Then we talked about the book "Tuesdays with Morrie". We've both read it, and interestingly enough both remember different key passages from it. For me, the strongest thought was when Morrie commented that "some day, someones gonna have to wipe my ass." It was a statement about loss of independence, the ever progressing nature of ALS. Kate remembered the line where Morrie saying he allowed himself 30 minutes of self-pity each morning and no more.

I occurred to me that perhaps this blog was my 30 minutes of self-pity, although many days I don't see a lot of self pity in it. This is, however, the space where I get to talk about living with ALS, and life in general, in pretty unflinching terms. In this space I try very hard to hold no punches, to leave little on the table. I want, in this journal of my journey, to share with as much reality as possible.

Self-pity is something I used to do. It's interesting that I do so little of it now, when I have a lot that I could use as a rationale for self-pity. Misery could easily be a part of my daily life as well. Yet I am far too pragmatic to spend large amounts of time in either of these places. They do so little for me, and even less for those around me.

When I am in public, I know this for sure. After about 30 seconds of hearing about ALS and my life challenges, people are pretty much ready to talk about something else, anything else. It is a depressing and boring subject, rife with all the emotions that drag us into our own misery. People don't want to hear about sad things, so I talk about other things, happy things, funny things.

On the other hand, I truly treasure those moments when I can talk about it, especially with those who care about me. I find those time, those minutes when I can say what it feels like to live with this, even more revealing and uplifting than the process of writing. So if my blog seems a bit negative to you, understand that this is where I get to tell the real story; it's not a very positive one. I get it out early; that way I don't have to carry it around all day.