I found this e-mail deep in my inbox, from when I was just out of the hospital in 2001:
Dear Val,
This is your friend Aunt Pollyanna. I have this disgusting sense of really important stuff coming from your catastrophe. I feel like in a funny way you saved your life. And that it will have much more love emphasis and less, but also different and better, performance emphasis. I wish you'd get a longhand writing habit going. Maybe morning pages, but also some very short essays related to music teaching. How's that for none of my business?
Love, J
Oh. I'd forgotten all about that e-mail, from when I was in the sea of trauma and depression and anger and absolute stubbornness that I would somehow make it. But reading it now, she was completely right. All of those things happened. MS did save my life. It still does, as it makes me constantly reassess what I'm doing and where I'm going. I've been reassessing all year, since September, realizing that it will soon be time to move on from schoolteaching. The next thing hasn't completely revealed itself yet, but it's starting to become clear. I'm getting glimpses of it as I continue to teach school, violin, and tango, and continue to think about music and motion and health and teaching. I think I can see where I'm going now and why. Oooooh, the suspense is killing me.