My adventure continues.

I’ve been quiet on here lately. I was surprised to see that the last post on here was from September 2024. Surely it can’t have been that long?

The world just seems too big sometimes, does anyone else feel like that? There has been so much turmoil in the world, and I’ve been trying so hard to focus on positivity that I forgot it’s okay to turn towards the shadows, there is nothing wrong with the mist or the fog. Sometimes, it takes not knowing what is going to happen that leads me to find a direction.

I also need to find a different focus for this blog. I don’t want to turn away from my journey with Cerebral Palsy and Multiple Sclerosis, that’s what this blog is about. It’s primarily about my disabilities, but I want to talk about more than that. I want this blog to be a place where I can talk about everything, I do for myself. If there is anything that I’ve done that honours my body and my journey, I want to write about it here.

I want to talk about my journey with food and the places that eating and MS have led me. I have so much to say about the benefits of acupuncture and reiki, exercise and video games and the difference positivity makes for me. I have wanted to broaden the focus of the blog for a while now. I want to talk about my struggles with body positivity and self image. My MS and CP are all tied up with that, too.

In what feels like forever ago now, a book inspired by this blog was supposed to be published. The publisher went bankrupt before my book was published and at the time, I was heartbroken. I walked away from this blog then. The book deal, the memoir I had written, and this blog felt too intertwined with each other. It took me a while to unravel the red thread that connected all three.

I started writing One Step at a Time after a bit of time had passed and it appeared that I had more to say about what it was like to live with Cerebral Palsy. I wrote about my issues dealing with a disability in an able-bodied world. This blog gave me a place to go when I need to have a voice. Then two things happened close together.

A few years after I started writing Once Step at a Time once more, my apartment was broken into. I had quite a bit taken, but the one that cut the most was that they took my laptop. My memory key that contained all my writing was in the drive. I’d left it there when I usually took all my writing with me everywhere, I never left it at home. I did that day. I’ve often wondered if someone found that thumb drive and looked at what was in it. I do hope that if someone didn’t just throw it out and that they looked within, they saw something that brought them joy.

Shortly after my apartment was broken into, I woke with what would later be diagnosed as Relapse Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. It changed my life and the way I live it. This blog became Two Steps at a Time. I wanted to write about my journey again and try to find my place in it. I had to find my marker in the path, you know? Writing has always brought me a comfort that nothing else can. I am most myself when I am in front of the computer writing. Like a lot of writers, I write because I have an almost constant need to explore the world that I carry within.

My memoir (also called Once Step at a Time) is lost to me. I’ve looked in all the files I can but can’t find any copy of that memoir. Despite that, I know that I still have a voice. I’ve survived so much in my life. I was born with a disability that should have killed me, only to fight again when a disease came to life within my blood. I’ve had to find a different way to do things and when the MS hit, I had to learn to speak, walk, type and live once more. I can’t turn away from everything that I’ve done to live my best life as I make my way forward.

I can’t turn away from myself and I’ve been taking steps to make sense of where I am within the world. I must keep trying to find my place within the cyclone that life can be. In all of this, I am most thankful for my husband. He has been the anchor that I always find myself drawn to. He brings balance when there isn’t any and he’s able to gently guide me through the storm that sometimes rages and make sure that I’m able to see the sun.

I’ve had to find a way back to myself. Writing this blog is part of that. I’m going to write about everything I’ve been doing to find a pathway living with Cerebral Palsy and Multiple Sclerosis. I know that the best way to start a new journey is to say hello and then see where that will take me.

I hope that you can forgive the silence.