We just got home from a trip to my homeland of the Middle West to see family and friends we haven’t seen since the start of COVID. As always, it’s a beautiful shitshow: Three nights here, two here, afternoon with her, evening with them, etc. And we never get to see all of the people we want to see, despite the hectic schedule. Everyone graciously rearranges schedules, hosts us, caters to our weird dietary restrictions, and makes us comfortable and feel loved. Since we moved to California, we’ve been making this trip. But since my MS diagnosis, it’s — as what’s-her-face sings in Aladdin — a whole new world.

The thing some people hate about travel is that they’re not in control of their surroundings and experiences. Being home means knowing where everything is, that your basic needs will likely be met because you have the means to meet them, and you can do what you need to do. Traveling entails a lot of letting go and flexibility, and I find that MS can really put a figurative (and sometimes literal) cramp in everything. The bottom line is that, though traveling usually means a certain letting go of control, lacking control over your body’s responses and limitations is an extra layer of scratchy polyester in an already stuffy room.

Ultimately, I want to distill my peak energy for visiting the people we’ve come to see, but being outside my carefully calibrated comfort zone makes me a walking variable. I am now a delicate flower, a sensitive creature, a high-maintenance piece of work. The bed’s too hard, the laughing’s too loud, the parking lot’s too far, the movie theater is too crowded…It just feels so stupid.

Yes, some of this need for comfort can come with age as well, absolutely. But what I’m working with is a honed strategy for daily living upended into total chaos while also weathering the demands of a visit-based trip and a deep desire to be present and connect. It’s hard. For example, we got up, made it to the airport, and got in line for security. Because we were trying to be smart and prepared, we packed my hiking poles in case I had trouble with balance in the airport (or wherever). As it happened, I got too hot (which can make people with MS malfunction), there were too many sensory inputs, and I started to stagger a bit. My wife took my bags as I started to struggle with the collapsible poles’ assembly. In some kind of madcap, Charlie Chaplin twist, it just kept falling apart, so my wife (still holding bags as I hung onto those retractable line guide thingies) started trying to put them together with the same results. We inched forward as sweat dripped into her eyes, I focused on not falling over onto a maskless family, and our daughter silently felt momentarily neglected around her fear of flying. At some point, a wheelchair appeared (not clear on how), so I rode the rest of the way to the plane doors. We did finally figure it out, so I used one to steady myself upon arrival. But then we were in the wrong terminal to get our bags, and the elevators weren’t visible anywhere, so my legs started to get that “the mafia finally found me and put my legs in cement” feeling. This was just the first six hours.

Along the way, earplugs, meds, deep stretching, deeper breathing, spotty exercise, and laughter with loved ones propelled me along. I also did something I don’t normally do at home anymore: push through.

Pushing through pain and exhaustion — dismissing my actual state of being — used to be a daily practice. Symptoms were an inconvenience to be sublimated and sidelined. And when the consequences came (and they almost always came), I often pushed through those, too. Ultimately, that daily practice led to peak productivity — and MS attacks. So while I pulled myself along like a jerk Gepetto promising Pinocchio he’ll be a real boy if he just puppeteers himself past every limit, my disease advanced with me.

On the trip, I made it almost the full two weeks without truly facing the worst of my body’s wrath, but on the second to last day, the shit hit the fan: My legs slowed to a stiff shuffle, my balance was spotty, and my exhaustion made it hard for me to form sentences. That night, my loving spouse got us up into the hotel room, lugged the luggage, and dealt with our also-exhausted daughter (all while being spent herself).

At the airport the next day, I was still relatively unsteady, so I used my stick. But the security line was long, so my wife went to preemptively ask for a wheelchair with our dear friend who ended up facilitating before catching her train. About 10 minutes later, a lovely and matter-of-fact man named Lon arrived and buckled me (yep) into the wheelchair. As he pushed us through the maze of security and then through the waist-level, pinball machine of bodies to our gate, I got the inevitable looks wheelchairs get. Based on the observations I make of people in wheelchairs, I think it’s often just a reflex assessment: What’s wrong with them? What put them in the chair? People’s assessment of my reason for being in a chair will probably come up lacking, so I have to resist the potential pitfall of shame and the impulse to wear a signed doctor’s note about my diagnosis, perhaps written in Comic Sans size 96 font.

But that wasn’t the reason that I started crying as we continued to snake through the crowds. I started crying because I needed to be in that chair. I was relieved, and this time the chair didn’t just appear — we’d asked for it. Could I have made it without the chair? Almost certainly (I’m a pretty tough broad). Would there have been more fallout? Definitely: I would have incurred more exhaustion, more worry from my family, and possibly a scary stumble or fall.

But “almost certainly” means there’s surrender, a painful letting go. There’s grief in that gap between “I could” and “I can’t.” I’m making a choice that firmly plants this illness the logistics of my life so that my daughter walks behind a wheelchair and a lovely man named Lon makes small talk about local bookstores. This is what’s happening, and I surrender.

While it’s a cheesy one, the obvious metaphor doesn’t escape me. We’re all on a journey, and we all have to choose when to push through and when to surrender. From my time sidelined at a water park in Wisconsin Dells, watching wet humanity march by; from the airport wheelchair; from each and every day watching friends and family stride through daily demands, I see the sublimation. Of course, some is necessary: We go to work, do the dishes, and clean out the closets, even when we don’t want to. We wait in lines at water parks in sticky swimsuits because it brings our kids joy. Plus, Beyoncé certainly advocates for the grind, and I mean, she’s doing pretty well, right? But at what point do we make a decision, stop, and sit down in the chair? At what point is it no longer worth it to push through in the name of…what? Success? Being “the best” mom? Prostrating ourselves at the foot of anxiety?

Next time we travel, I’m asking for a wheelchair, not because I can’t make it to the gate, but because this is one instance in which I don’t have to needlessly struggle. I don’t have to subject my family to extra worry while also propelling us through security faster — a perk! Surrender isn’t without sacrifice. There’s a place for pushing through when the payoff is precious, but sometimes deciding what to lose means losing less, and sometimes self-sacrifice actually has a price others pay.