How heavy is a glass of water?

  How heavy is a glass of water?

  The absolute weight doesn't matter.
  It depends on how long and how high you have to hold it.

  If held for a minute, it's not a problem.
  If held  for an hour, the hand and arm holding it will ache miserably.
  If held  for a day, you may wish to call for an ambulance!
  In each case, it's the same weight.  
  But the longer it is held, the heavier it becomes.

  Perhaps it is the same way with a disability? 
  If we carry the burden of disability over our heads all the time,
  sooner or later the burden becomes increasingly heavy and can
  become unmanageable. 

As with the glass of water, you have to put the weight of it down for awhile and
give yourself a rest before hoisting it again.   Once refreshed, you can continue
with far less effort and stress.

So we should give ourselves the gift of rest - let esteem and confidence rise to the
surface, instead of the disability.  Don't carry it overhead again, until rested - considerably.
There is nothing else so important that can't be put aside until we're refreshed.
Let mind and body regenerate in peace.   

Pick up the burden of disability later, and consider for a moment that maybe it isn't
even NECESSARY.   And perhaps you'll find that tomorrow - indeed, sooner than not -
you might even learn to appreciate a fresh glass of water.

 ______________________________

Perhaps this lovely bit will be etched on my tombstone a zillion years from now?  I smile to think... 
I remember a day 13years ago - after a motor vehicle wreck - when I first hoisted a whole 'bucket'
of water overhead.

My name is Olivette and I'm a 54yr old ex-hippie, and widowed mother of two stellar adult boys.   
Ex-hippie you say?  OH yeah... I think its like being a marine or nurse or the like. 
A person might outgrow the propensity, but not necessarily the trait. 
So deep down I'm purdy sure I'm still a hippie... I just outgrew paisley and bell bottoms. 

Apparently old hippies are not bullet proof, and can be devastated 
by motor vehicle wrecks.   Congress warned us back in the 60's
that drug use would lead to our demise.... turned out to be a rolled
over vehicle instead.  In hindsight, maybe we should've smoked 
bigger stacks of weed rather acquiring a dangerous drivers license?
Who knew...

My husband was also an old hippie.  But, suddenly we were no
longer who we imagined ourselves to be.  He became a "C3-4 quad"
and I was his decrepid wheelchair wife, with shattered bones from
head to toe.  I was lucky... and, compared to my husbands injuries, 
I couldn't really bitch. I could still stand, and breathe, and pee by myself.  

All was well...  well kinda.... OK NOT.  A gaping vortex of deficit engulfed me.

Years went by  and I howled at the moon regularly, and rightfully.  My size 12 figure increased
exponentially as my movements decreased, my amped sex life vanished, my adventurous
bad-boy husband withered, my ability to walk failed, and my sense of self was all but obliterated.
I felt assured that someday I'd prevail and overcome.  (It's in the essential core of my being.) 
But, I didn't feel it would arrive soon enough.  I was wearing out.  And of course with additional
surgery's and body parts failing... my 'glass of water' was mighty damn heavy, overflowed, and
drowned me.... regularly. 

Five years after the wreck my husband escaped the gravitational pull of this planet. 
Some time after his passing, I refocused on the remainder of myself. 
I clearly missed the young happy hippy girl I once was.  
Indeed, this turned out to be an unexpected vision and led to my needed metamorphosis.  

PLAN A => Hippies traditionally smoke doobies and hug trees, right?  (Well, that's how I remember it.)
So I scrounged through my friends and family until I wrangled up a doob.  Packed up my junk,
loaded up my wheelchair and kids - and headed to the mountains in search of a lonely tree.  
Holy Mackerel!  A couple nights contemplating a camp fire was like being recharged with a
lightening bolt.  OK, so reliving my tree hugging days was a blast-from-the-past... but, it wasn't
like that at home no-mo!!  Grrrrrrr...

PLAN B => A melody flowed from the radio, "If you want to be somebody else, change your mind"
Renewed energy coursed through my veins.  I was higher that day than the doob could realistically
take credit for.  It dawned on me that I'd better prepare for major alterations within myself and at HOME!

I spent a few years working diligently at reinventing my hippie self.  Not successfully at first. 
Some components were just not intact anymore, and pounds of smoke just weren't in my future. 
I'd obviously outgrown tree hugging, much like paisley...  but something familiar stirred and nagged at me. 

PLAN C => I decided not to be concerned about the body I now inhabited. 
I found I rather enjoyed my ungainly self and stopped comparing my anatomical maladies to my late
husbands, or to my younger self.  I realize I was privileged to have the body of a 50+ woman - having 
earned all thedamage and wrinkles and what not!   (("I am woman, hear me roar" is far more pleasant
than, "I am woman hear me whine."))   

PLAN C 1/2 => I began roaring at the moon instead of howling. 
Spectacular change for me - but the moon seemed to remain indifferent. 

PLAN D => "Use every opportunity at your disposal, or learn to be content with missed opportunities
and ineptitude."   The old hippie in me was itching to impact the world again, and make it a better place.  
I turned my attention to our university for new and better ramps, parking, elevators, and transit access
beyond campus.  Done deal!  Then I redirected my efforts toward better access and transportation in our
little town.  Yah, I know its a tired story - fix the world and you'll fix yourself.  Somehow its just not wrong. 

PLAN E => Eventually, I found help to keep my house as clean as it once was.  Remarkable difference
in my outlook just by efficiently maintaining my surroundings.  I started to earnestly modify everything in
my environment to suit me.  Sweeeet!  "I enjoy my crib - therefore, I enjoy my life."  OK, its not a famous
quote, but it's also not an unreasonable leap... and bears repeating.  My household became a source of
pride and joy again!

PLAN F => Applying the same focus to my adaptive equipment, I quit using make-do crap and revamped
the tools I needed to live - not minimally, but exceptionally.  Wow.  Remarkable. When I treated
myself like I deserved the best, I became MY best.  One somehow followed the other naturally.  
My family also followed this course. For my youngest sons graduation, my boys collaborated and built
ME a trike-motorcycle!  In a heartbeat we launched on a 1500 mile adventure with my manual chair
in a trailer behind it.  ((xx0x0xx))  I told you I had stellar sons... 

Somewhere along the line I changed from damaged, to damn fine! 
Love was in the air. I was back to being an alpha mom, and the world beckoned. 
(And, I realized that it had always beckoned... but, I was simply off the radar awhile.)

OUT OF PLANS... JUST GOIN' WITH THE FLOW => After years of fine tuning my world...  my inner
hippy-self was once again happy.  I mean truly content... even when my "glass of water" overflowed with
yet another surgery, illness or age...  I wasn't bummed or burdened.  No misery in sight.  
I was mighty dog-gone happy. 

 "WHAT" you say???   (Happy is a might STRONG word here....)   Yep.  Happy!  

When I tally up the sum of these past 13 years, I'm astonished and purdy pleased with my lot in life. 

I've ridden a customized motorcycle-trike
over half the western states. 

I've ridden a horse all day to climb a mountain
and and picnic'd by a pond at the highest peak,
riding down at sunset.

And white water rafted on the Snake River.

And sort of Roller Bladed...  for the first time ever!

I've sailed or flown outside the US enough to have covered 12% of the globe. 
And I did it to celebrate my ability - not in spite of 'disabilitiy'. 

More than a few travelers have looked longingly at me hauling ass
across an airport with my power wheelchair and trailer, towing a stack
of luggage like a truck driver!

My sons are grown and the youngest will inevitably leave our treasured nest.
So, at their persistent urging I applied and was recently accepted into a
Certified Service Dog program.  Whoa nelly!   Before long I'll enjoy having
a companion to lend a paw with my activities, and a buddy to nuzzle and
share TV time.   Now there's a real switcheroo!  Who'd have thought?

For those of you still reading....  all this eventually leads back to
"The weight of a glass of water".  You see, everyone ends up with
a hefty glass of water.  Learn to drink deeply, and cherish the life it offers. 
Don't hold onto it until you're in agony and dying of thirst.

If you do, I swear, eventually you'll look forward to the next full glass.  

    Thanks for visiting with me,

     ¯¯`·>-= wzername =-<·´¯¯