The best laid plans

I've already mentioned that I'm a bit of a photo geek. Occasionally I'd plan a day away specifically to take photos, which was the plan for yesterday. I'd selected the location (a waterfall close by), I'd cleared the SD card ready for over 1000 pics, I'd cleaned lenses meticulously, I'd make sure the tripod was working smoothly and I'd packed a lunch. I've been reading up on waterfall photography, how to create the "dream like state" and all of that, so I wanted to try it out. It also fits in pretty well with my homework for my photography class where we were to play with water and shutter speeds. Last night nothing would have stopped me! Well, except a sudden flare.

I hadn't planned for the weather. It rained. I don't like to be out there in the rain. It's cold and wet. The cold and wet do funny things to my joints and my hands were already starting to get tight.

So. I'd a few choices. Mope about not being able to do what I'd planned, or go and do it, suck up the rain and hope my joints don't get worse. Or, I could enjoy what I've got. I've been given a day to do what I want, to read, to sit and just be. Or, the one we ended up doing, waiting a while.

We waited. And waited a little more and finally left after lunch. Was it worth it? Ya-ha!

And I got this shot.

Cool, eh? And that's before I'd messed around with it.

Worth the wait? I think so, especially considering the other shots I had to experiment with to get this one.

This sort of situation got me thinking. Have I applied the same understanding and reasoning to every aspect of my life? I'm not sure. One thing I've had to learn with my.... whatever... is patience. Patience when I flare, patience when I have a bad day, patience with others as they too learn how to work with me, and patience in trying to get a diagnosis. It's the hardest thing I've had to learn.

Take my recent flare, which, thankfully, I've now recovered from. I hated it. I'd finally gotten some sort of a life back, some normality, and I was finally able to think about going back to uni. I was nearly back to how I'd been before all of this had started. Within a few days of the flare starting, I was back on the mother-load of painkillers and still hardly able to move. I wanted to be normal again. I didn't want to have a flare, so, instead of doing the sensible thing and resting until I was through it, I kept pushing myself to stupid limits. It took weeks before I finally noticed that I was in it for the long run and, only then, did I calm down a little. I stopped being so hard on myself and I stopped expecting so much. I'd finally gained some patience and noticed that not matter how much I wanted to be well again, it wasn't going to happen any time soon. It was hard, but it was a good lesson and I needed to learn it. I just hope I can remember it for the next flare!