Star Wars, The a Empire Strikes Back. My favorite of the original trilogy movies. Why? It’s the struggle the dark side the bleak unknown of the outcome. It has hope though as Luke and Leia watch Lando Calrissiam fly away in the Millennium Falcon in search of Han Solo. When it came out in what 1980 never thought that certain lines would play in my head when relative to having multiple sclerosis. This line Yoda says does. It’s because I use to “do” and now I can’t “do” anymore and there is always that one person that says “at least you try”. Ugh!!! That is so frustrating. I know people don’t mean it meanly but it frustrates me beyond the MS. I don’t want to try, I want to be able to do still.

This morning I was doing Zumba. I can only stand up for about three or four songs until my legs will force me to sit down. As the music and the routines go further even though I’m sitting my arm start to get fatigued as well. So now I’m not even standing and my arms are flailing around somewhat spastically really not doing all that much intensity. Yet my Fitbit registered  that I did it 55 minutes of activity. I barely broke a sweat. And that line brings to my head “at least you tried” and then I have that Yoda line right behind it “there is no try do.” That’s the thing I did do. I used to stand up for the whole routine that was the first thing to go. Then I did every other song I’d stand up for, second thing to go. Then it became stand up for two songs sit for two songs. Now we’re down for the majority of the work out. However my arms were still doing fine. Then they started to give me problems. They started getting tired as they work out continued. Now I’m dealing with the newest symptom which is my back. Because my core is so weak as I work out in my modified version on my chair with spastic spaghetti arms, my back is bending because my core which has no feelings or muscle control can hold it up. And there is nothing I can do. Do or do not there is no try.

When I decided to write this post today, I knew exactly what I wanted to say. But as I started writing it and thinking about it there was more I realized about the movie and my current situation. As I stated before  The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite of the Star Wars trilogy because it was the dark one, the unknown, what will happen. Isn’t that what MS is?  Isn’t that the exact thing  that really defines multiple sclerosis? It’s a very unknown disease as far as the path it’s going to take. I very well could stay like this for the rest my life or I can very well be in a wheelchair.  When I was thinking about that I actually smiled because it’s true and it rings true with me which is what made me smile. It’s like living with that sense of danger.  It’s almost ironic we came out 35 years ago and it’s always been my favorite movie. However part of what I also love about the movie is that there’s hope.  That ending scene with Luke and Leia watching the Millennium  Falcon take off to find Han Solo there’s hope. Brings me to where my thought process is today. Have faith and believe. Believe in whatever the future has in store for you there are reasons. Believe in the cure, believe in the right medicine and believe in the right timing for it all to come to help me.

This Yoda had good lines for a puppet. It was another line in the movie that just seemed so fitting to me when I started writing this post.  When I watched the movie I can tell you I’d never thought somehow I’d be comparing it to my life and especially not to my life with multiple sclerosis but I must say that I think it’s cool. Cool in a weird way that a movie I’ve loved so much since I was 9 years old still has meaning in my life.