Closing time

"Closing time
Open all the doors and let you out into the world
Closing time
Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl
Closing time
One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer
Closing time
You don't have to go home but you can't stay here "


This song sort of personifies my life right now.  I know it has been a few years since I have written, and for that I apologize.  When I last left you my life was completely different than it is now.  I was a different person.  I was happily married to a guy who I thought supported me in this horrible disease, but as it turns out, I now find myself divorced.  

He left me on January 6, 2013, and my life is forever changed.  My divorce was final on September 5, 2013, and I feel as though I need to get back to writing.  I need to document my life, because the person I am today, is not the person I will be in 6 months from now, or even 6 weeks from now.  It is closing time.  Open all the doors and let you out into tho the world...

This blog was once strictly about my MS journey, but I have come to realize that JUST calling it my MS journey, is limiting myself.  This is about MY LIFE.  MS is not me, and it does not define who I am, but yes it is a part of me.  I am a person composed of many parts.  I am complex.  I am not simply one thing.  I cannot write just a blog about MS, or just  about my divorce, or just about getting healthy.  That would be over simplified.  I will write about my life instead, which will  include many parts. It will include triumphs and struggles from many different aspects, including, but not limited to those above.  

In reality, all things are intertwined.  How I handle my health, how I handle my depression, coming out of a broken marriage, all effects my MS.  There is no separating that, so I am not going to try.  

I had been with the same man since I was 18 years old.  Engaged at 18, married at 23, and divorced at 33.  He is all that I have ever known.  He was my life.  I wasn't ever Katie, and quite honestly, I don't even know who Katie is.  I was simply Kraig's wife.  That was my identity.  I know Kraig's wife was a supporting role, and I know things she enjoyed doing as a couple, but she is not the same person as Katie.  Katie is a leading role, and I need to cast her.  My goal at this point is to find out who Katie is, what she aspires to be, what her dreams are, and how she plans on getting there.  I don't know the answers to those questions at this point, but I need to find out.  

Finding this person, Katie, seems like such a daunting task.  Not because I have lost her, but because she has never existed. She needs to be built from the ground up.  This is her opportunity.  This is MY opportunity.  This is KATIE'S opportunity.  

Who she is,  is something we will find out together. The bright side about this, is that I have a fresh start.  I can be who I want to be.  I don't have to limit myself to preconceived notions.  I have a clean slate, and the sky is the limit.  

Like I said, when I last wrote in here, I was not the same person as I am today, and I can confidently say that tomorrow, I will not be the same person either.  I am forever evolving.  One  door closes, and another one will open.  You simply have to take that first step and open it up. 


"Closing time

Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
Closing time
This room won't be open till your brothers or your sisters come
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"