Nom de plume

A pseudonym.. A nom de plume. Hah! It’s so George Eliot, so narcissistic. Who cares?  Only my old self. The one before MS. The independent, self-reliant, fearless former me who still shows up at work and pretends she is still in charge. 

Why can’t I write as myself? Which self? The hilarious part here is that as a very healthy, very naïve, very young psychologist, I used to work with clients in adapting to chronic illness. I barely recognize her.  It was all so (clean) back then. Here are the techniques to use for chronic pain, use these for acute flare-ups, develop these skills for improving your social life despite your understandable desire to keep the covers over your head…..

The right set of skills, the requisite knowledge, you are good to go.

Maybe I missed something. Was there a chapter of the manual I forgot to read?  Because my very best efforts at mindfulness, my careful training of my mind, fails to diminish, or even slightly alter, the suffering.  Twenty-six year old self-- you write a blog. It can be haughty and academic and even condescendingly well-meaning. But my 26-year old self can’t; She’s busy, telling people how to feel better, telling people to buck up.

I, on the other hand, am available. I am at home, trying to recruit enough energy to both play with my kids and clean-up the house a little. Cleaning up the house! Is this what I miss? Really?

Really.  That self back there, she never once considered that at any time in the future she would have to negotiate carefully the choice between 10 more minutes in the pool and trying to push a vacuum cleaner. She would have joked that she is lazy anyway.  Lazy is a gift, an entitlement you don’t notice until you no longer have the luxury.  Sometimes I pretend I’m lazy now, to hide that I would not be able to stand up or do something that is entirely pedestrian.  I want to be able to clean my own house. Even one room.  I forgot to notice how easily I used to move through space.

So-- my name. I have the one name that has been me my whole life. That is the me that goes out into the world each day with determination and grit.  That me gets things done.  Well, as long as those things can be done from a chair, for which I am in a great profession. And there is the other me. The self  that is available for writing this blog. The one who is uncertain and embarrassed, confused and vulnerable.  Vulnerability is so not me. Not that me anyway.

Feeble as a centurian, scared as a child, trying to build an identity over the bridge between then and now. Not separate entirely, but at a polite distance. Adjacent to the self I thought I would be. How long does it take for identity to catch up to reality?

September 5, 2011