LTD. I’m not sure when I came up with that acronym, but it’s one I’ve been using for the last few years. I use it when I’m having peak moments. Moments when I’m at my happiest. When I am my most fulfilled. When I am overwhelmed by gratitude. When my soul is at peace.<\/p>\n
LTD stands for Living The Dream. It’s shorthand for life is good. It’s this 3 letter code that I often blurt out to my husband or sister or best friend when I am literally living in what feels like a dream. We all have our LTD moments. Just look at people’s Facebook newsfeeds, they are often full of them. \u00a0The interesting thing about my LTD moments is that I often find them at the simplest, most\u00a0mundane times: watching my husband make pancakes with our boys on a Sunday morning, bobbing in the waves on a beautifully sunny southern California summer day, holding my husband’s hand while\u00a0watching one of our sons perform on stage. It’s in those moments when I feel like there’s nothing more I would want or need as long as I have this. But recently there’s been a dream, a simple one, that I had not been able to live out.<\/p>\n
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My boys are old enough now that they’re riding bikes and scootering all over the place. We live in a neighborhood that’s accessible to lots of shops and restaurants. Riding bikes with the family was always a vision I had for myself. Even before kids, as strange as that sounds. But I learned the hard way two years ago on Mother’s Day (when I suggested that we all go rent bikes at\u00a0the beach) that I could no longer\u00a0ride\u00a0a real bike. (It turns out spinning at the gym does not translate into being able to cycle on the road.) So I had to make a choice.<\/p>\n
If you told me when I was first diagnosed 9 years ago that I would one day have two kids and the only way I’d be able to join them on a family bike ride would be via an electric “mobility” scooter, I’d tell you I’d rather die. I’d tell you that sounds like a nightmare and kindly ask you to not bring it up again. And yet, a few days ago, this happened. (See video link below). I promise you I never would have imagined this to be an LTD moment. But I also never believed that I’d get here. I don’t mean to this level of physical disability, but rather, to this level of adaptability and adjustment to my reality. Intellectually, I am aware that we are designed to adapt to our circumstances in an effort to cope. We are evolutionarily programmed to do so in the service of survival. But emotionally, I never believed\u00a0I’d ever be able to actually do it. \u00a0I was wrong.<\/p>\n
Don’t fear the bad things from happening. Fear an inability to adjust and adapt to them. Be willing to reconfigure, reimagine. You never know where your LTD\u00a0moments may be hiding.<\/p>\n