Good morning, Barb (@bjk3)

I had thought that "purpose" might make for a good topic. After you've hung around this forum for a while, you realize that the majority of topics have to do with the nuts and bolts of PN –– shoes, meds, therapies, etc., and that's 100% to be expected –– while fewer topics have to do with the emotional impact of PN. What you and I think of when we hear the word "purpose" differs slightly. Your thoughts natural gravitate toward the spiritual, whereas mine rotate more around one's sense of self. For example …

… until PN, I could get up each morning and say to myself "my purpose is to act." I was able to finish the "I am a ______" sentence by saying "I am an actor." When PN came along, booting me from acting, I had a hard time saying "my purpose is to act." (Let's set aside, just for discussion's sake, the option I had –– and still have –– to act using a walker or wheelchair. Many fine actors do, and I may yet still.) So, if I felt like a fraud saying "my purpose is to act," what was I to say? "My purpose is to take pills"? "My purpose is to walk ever so carefully so I don't fall"? "My purpose is to get used to having PN"? Each of those has its place, but none seemed deeply satisfying, not in the long run of being alive and being conscious of being alive. Blame it on a swollen ego if you wish ( 🙂 ), but needed something grander, more triumphant, more contributory that just remembering to take my atorvastatin.

It seems that either way we're inclined –– the spiritual, or the self-assessing –– it's a matter of identity: how we see and understand ourselves, and how others see and understand us. And trying to finish the killer sentence: "I am a _____."

Oh, Barb, us and our PN. Ain't it somethin'? 🙂

Cheers!
Ray (@ray666)