I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been so out of sorts as of late. It finally dawned on me this evening. It’s the anniversary of my dark time.

In 2013, I became sick In January and was bed ridden. I went back to work in February but became even more sick. After going to the hospital, the neurologist on staff said he was pretty sure he knew what it was, but had to run some tests.

After those tests (blood work, vision testing, a spinal tap, etc) I finally found out in April that I had Multiple Sclerosis. I thought I was okay with it. I was born with spastic Cerebral Palsy…what was one more issue? I already had a disability, what was a disease on top of that?

Quite a bit, as it turned out. By May, I was depressed, By June, I was in the shadows. By July? There was only darkness.

My body was no longer known to me. I had symptoms that were foreign to me. I slid, more than fell, into a crippling depression. I couldn’t find any joy and all I wanted to do was escape from my life. All I wanted was for everything to stop. I wanted to get off the ride that my life had become.

I was given medication to help with the spasms caused by the Cerebral Palsy. I contemplated taking my life at one point and was given counsel by my mother. “I didn’t raise a quitter.” She said. “Don’t you quit on me now.”

I didn’t. It took all of my strength not to quit, not to get off of the ride. I’m so glad I didn’t because in August of that year, what I carried within me was given a name: Multiple Sclerosis. I found out the day before my birthday.

It’s taken me a while to figure out why I’ve been so off, why I’m more quick to lose my temper lately or why, despite the amount of great things that I have going on in my life, I’ve also been strangely sad.

This is actually a good thing. It took me so long to figure out why I was a little despondent. So that proves a few things to me:

I’ve grown a lot in the past two years. Pain does heal. You can learn from everything that life throws at you. That, even though at the time I thought I would never forget the time and exact dates that everything had happened, I have.

So what does all this mean?

It means that even though you may think your life is over, time does heal everything. That, over time, things become softer and less out of focus than they were. It means that I’ve grown beyond who I was during that dark time into the person I am today.

I am by no means the same person but I’m totally okay with that. And that’s pretty freaking awesome.