Failure is an Option

I stared at the kayak. “Oh, hell no,” my brain was telling me. I wasn’t worried about the paddling part—my arms can crank. But the getting in part, the staying upright part, the getting out part, and the whole not drowning part were an issue. Laura wanted to go, and suggested a tandem kayak would alleviate many of my concerns. My brain was skeptical. My brain, wisely, wanted to bail. And then, on the edge of a tiny lake in Colorado Springs six hours from home, my celebrity doomed me.

“Hey, don’t you do a blog?!”

Egad. Mr. ActiveMSer has been spotted contemplating waffling on well, being active.

“I love ActiveMSers, it’s so inspiring to see you getting out and doing what you can. It helped motivate me to climb a fourteener. You are awesome! I’m Meg, a longtime member with multiple sclerosis. It’s so great to meet you in person.”

Gulp. Totally busted. There was no way I could let Meg down now.

Okay, I reasoned with my brain, if Meg can do a fourteener (she even got a tattoo to commemorate the experience), I can attempt to kayak for a measly 15 minutes. So I went through my basic pre-kayak checklist: life jacket—check, paddle—check, behaving bladder—check (as much as one can check such things).

As I expected, getting into the kayak was challenging. But with a little help, I was off and paddling! That is, until I wasn’t. While my arms are great, my core (despite lots of training) puts the eh in meh. With my legs in front of me and no back support in this particular kayak, after a half dozen strokes I was admiring the puffy clouds directly above me in the sky. I discovered kayaking while lying on one’s back is rather impossible.

For the rest of our excursion, which was nearly a half hour, Laura did 98 percent of the work while I grabbed my legs to stay upright. If we got near shore, I’d paddle for a few strokes in the event a swarm of paparazzi (or just Meg) was going to capture my lameness for the tabloids. Oh, I didn’t actually care. Why?

See, earlier that day I played wheelchair tennis, a sport I feared would depress me, and just remind me of how I used to love to play the game and how I now had no business setting foot (or wheels as the case may be) on the court. Sure, I was terrible, but it was fantastic fun. Laura had to drag me off the court after nearly two hours. We even played doubles!

The point is, there likely will be times with multiple sclerosis that you fail trying to do something that the old you could do effortlessly. It’s important to realize that that’s okay. Heck, when you have MS, failure absolutely is an option, and an important one. Because if you never try, if you never experiment, if you never leave your comfort zone, then this disease wins. Screw* that.

While I enjoyed getting out on the lake on a beautiful day, I’ll try to kayak again with proper back support (and ideally an adaptive instructor). And I’ll get back out on the tennis court with a proper wheelchair designed for swinging the racquet and chasing balls. As for when motivation wanes and doubt creeps in, I discovered that you need to find inspiration wherever and however you can. This day it was a touch of serendipity, and her name was Meg.

*Note: my editor, aka wife, used this word to replace the more descriptive and vulgar word that I had originally chosen. Children, she reasoned, might read this. Meanwhile, I’m thinking kids have better things to do than to read blogs that contain words that rhyme with duck. While I always defer to her (always) better judgement, feel free to replace said word in your head for dramatic effect.