Living with ALS means that you are often straddling two worlds. For me, the first world is the one where my friends talk about school, their kids, their vacation plans, their jobs. In the other world, my friends talk about making their own funeral plans, how to take some of the burden off of their families, picking out what they will wear when their kids say goodbye to them. Both worlds are real, but it can be extremely challenging to toggle back and forth between them. I’m getting better at it, maybe? I’m not really sure.

I had a flash of former life last night, a vision of this yoga class I used to go to regularly. The doors that closed, the heat rising to 110°, me on my mat performing the same 26 poses in the same order, all that strength in my legs and arms. One time, lying on the ground, as calm and settled as a leaf, when the instructor came to stand over me, his sweat dripping down onto my own chest. How I flinched when the drops hit me. The way the room would begin to smell stale, a burnt popcorn aroma that I associated with mistakes, as if everyone there was purging what lay just under their skin. Read More>