How I Turned the Corner: Learning That Love is a Two-Sided Coin - Part II

What I learned in then ten plus years since my last relationship ended is that I had to change my emotional outlook towards how I viewed myself in the relationship. It's all about building a life together with the one person who gets you. Who understands you, who feels the same way you do, who understands what you want out of life, who understands what you want out of your future.

And that took a long time for me to figure out and come to understand.

Not only did I have to examine my role in life (not to mention the emotional toll that MS was taking on me and others), but I had to figure out what exactly I wanted out of life other than to simply survive until the next day. Did I just want a girlfriend? Or a life partner? And could that life partner commit to someone suffering from a life altering disease like MS? Ultimately taking on the role of caretaker?

It was a lot to process through, but what it really boiled down to was two lines in the marriage vows...FOR BETTER OR WORSE, TIL DEATH DO US PART. It really hit home for me during 2020 aka The Year of Covid -mania. As the epidemic spread across the world, and with the deaths of the elderly and those with compromised immune systems rising by the month, it really hit home exactly what was missing from my life.

A partner. A loving and caring partner. Someone to share my life with. Someone who would be there through the good and bad. Someone who would not see my disability, but me, the man who just happens to be struggling daily with an illness that affects everything in his life. Someone who would be a cheerleader as well as a coach. Someone who wants to love and be loved in return. Someone who needed to be needed as much as I did.

Not just for awhile...but for good. That's what was missing.

I'd changed a few things physically: I quit smoking, I'd been sober for more than a year, and I was doing the exercises my physical therapist prescribed. Plus I'd begun to think hard about my role in this world where the MS and disabled community was concerned. I built this website, added several social media platforms including TikTok.

Then out of the blue, it happened...a new relationship developed. A woman DM'd me on TikTok shortly after I began my account. It's been almost two months, constant communication, and personal and emotional honesty with each other has created the best relationship I've ever been a part of.

And I love her.

So love is possible if you're disabled. BUT it takes work. A lot of work.