13. Miserable again

My glass is still half-empty. This is a dangerous (and rather uncomfortable) state to be in. For a while now I have been concentrating on what I can't do - and that is a recipe for disaster!
These negative feelings really got going when I decided I wanted a move-round of the furniture. Many years ago (and before my stroke) I would spend a happy afternoon re-organising rooms. I would do this on a whim, and had no trouble pushing and pulling the heavy stuff around until I was happy with my handiwork. How different it is now! It must be several years since I last had a change-round, and there is no acting on a whim. There has to be a plan of action, agreed well in advance. And as for putting my back into moving furniture ...that is a thing of the past! Now, I am reduced to sitting on the sidelines, directing the proceedings.
This train of thought led on to another, more upsetting realisation. Up until recently, my thoughts (and many of my conversations) began with 'before the stroke ...' It all seemed so recent. All the values, all the skills, all the likes and dislikes, all the habits I had then were as if frozen in time. Maybe I clung to them because these, and other aspects of my character were the only things I had left. The 'important' bits of my character still remain, but I can no longer think of it as 'recent'. It is thirteen years since I had the stroke; thirteen years I have been this way. I can no longer revel in the triumph of cheating death, of surviving against all odds, of defying all and sundry to prove the point that I wasn't a 'lost cause'. I am in the 'long haul' that is the rest of my life. And this realisation has made me miserable.
It would be so easy to slide into depression. At one stage it was even an expected consequence. But I am too stubborn for that ...and some might say 'bloody-minded'. So for the time being I will continue to kick the cat (metaphorically of course). Oh, and re-arrange the furniture!