My Energy Levels are Surprising, Even to Me

“We just couldn’t believe you were dancing so much! You danced the whole night – we were amazed!”

This sentiment was shared with me after a family wedding, where I did, in fact, spend a good portion of the evening on the dance floor. My response was a new experience – having to justify why I felt good. Good enough to dance at a wedding for a few hours.

In my MS experience thus far, I’ve had to do a lot of explaining for why I feel bad – my legs hurt or I’m tired or my feet aren’t cooperating. In this case, I had to explain why I felt well enough to dance – to the amazement of my family and friends who were more used to asking me, in concerned tones, how I’ve been doing lately.

How was I able to pull off this incredible feat, you ask? I rested – hard – in preparation. I spent the hours leading up to the evening of the wedding lounging in a chair by the pool with my feet up, and then I took a nap for ninety minutes. During the dinner portion of the evening, I spent as much time as possible sitting. Plus, the day before, I also spent the majority of the day lounging and napping.

And you know what else? It just happened to be a good day. I had the energy, and I leaned into it. Were my legs tingling while I was busting a move? Yes. But it wasn’t bad enough to force me to sit down, especially because I was having fun and wanted to enjoy it.

It’s an interesting place to be in now – feeling like I need to justify the ways my body decides to behave that day. This is one of the strange things about having an invisible illness, because I pretty much look the same every day. Maybe I look a little tired now and then (who doesn’t), but no one can see the strange sensations I feel daily in my legs and feet (see my post here about weird sensory issues). So how do I describe to people that sometimes, even if I’m feeling bizarre symptoms, I’m not incapacitated?

In this particular situation, even I was surprised at my capacity to crush it on the dance floor. Was it adrenaline? Willful ignorance? Or maybe I was just riding high on a good energy day and refusing to let my symptoms take me out. I began to wonder if I’d unlocked some kind of super power – did I really have the ability to tell my symptoms to fuck off for an evening?? Maybe not, but it felt good to be able to fully enjoy myself. I love dancing at a wedding, and I wanted to.

Let me tell you though, I was kind of wrecked the next day, so I did pay for it later. But it was worth it.