KATKelly:Suddenly single - life with my daughter, my doodle, and MS

Happy New Year!  I am excited for 2025 and so proud of how far we have come in the 2 years since our lives went upside down!   I could have thrown in the towel, sold our house, moved in with family- basically quit on myself and on Áine.  I didn't.  Instead, I figured out how to be a single mother with MS while our world fell apart and put if back together.  Not in the same way, not in a way I ever thought possible, but I did it. I think it is easy for people to forget or even know that I have MS.  I do everything other parents do.  I do the laundry, I clean the house, I shop for groceries, I pay the bills, I maintain my accounts, I take care of the house inside and out, I get my child to school, I do homework,  I manage the family schedule, I walk the dog,  I work, I run.  I'm not very good about cooking but aim to be better.  Recipes are exhausting.  Doing all of this alone make it understandable for people to forget or n...

“Mommy, you want to fight?”  It’s 8:05 in the morning, and my 9-year old, Áine, is asking me if I want to fight.  This is a continuation of our fight from last night, and we only have 5 minutes until we need to put our shoes on to hit the road for the school bus.  Despite being crunched for time, I say, “yes, let’s fight!”   We take our respective places in the living room, Áine explains the rules in a deep, commanding voice, “any one of these three seats counts.  Whoever ends up in one of these three seats is the loser!”  Then, she starts the countdown in the same commanding voice, “3, 2, 1 . . . let it begin!”   Before I go any further, I will explain about our fights.  They are not real fights with yelling and screaming.  They are not real fights with hitting and punching.  They are just your average mother/daughter takedown fights.  We wrestle each other until one of us ends up pushing the other down into one of 3 seat...

National daughter’s day - I am so grateful every day of my life for the beautiful little human I am fortunate to parent.  As a 100% single mother, every day is not full of joy but every day there are moments of joy.  She is the person I laugh with most in the world. The person I laugh the hardest with.  The person I dance the most with. The person I sing the most with.  The person I am grateful for all day every day.   Life is by no means all laughter and joy.  It is hard and taxing and exhausting. On days like today where I am MS fatigued, where I feel like I have run multiple marathons and don’t have the patience to help with homework after soccer practice while I am trying to balance my bank accounts, she sees the cranky mom.  The mom that doesn’t have the patience because it's all on me,  It’s not fair.  She is collateral damage from my disease and her parents’ divorce.   I try to check myself because I don’t have the backu...

Today is a day where MS wants to remind me that it is still here, but it is still the best day of my life. The weather messed with me. 50s in the morning and 80 in the afternoon means no bueno for me. Yesterday, I was your average everyday mom.  Wake up before the house, write in my gratitude journal, journal, practice some EFT (emotional freedom technique, tapping), read.  As I prepared my daughter’s breakfast and fed my dog, I cleaned the kitchen and put a load of laundry on.   Walked with Áine and Lilly to the bus stop, went home, and went to the gym where I ran 2 miles on the treadmill as I spoke with a gym friend.  I was excited to see her as we hadn’t seen each other in a while, and she is really the only person I talk to there.  They were too busy to do my strength training session so I went home to work for a couple of hours before I went back to the gym for strength training. It was empty at this time, hooray!  All was good until the trainer,...

How long does it take to recognize that you are enough?  Not even just enough, more than enough!  For so long, I tried to hide myself.  I was always afraid people were going to find out I was a fraud, an imposter.  No matter what I accomplished, what others said about me, I didn’t believe it for myself.   I got a 4.0 in grad school.  I said it was just because it was an easy university.  Anyone could get a 4.0 there.   I was a teaching intern for 2 years.  I never got a bad evaluation from my mentor teachers, program director, or the principal of the school.  It was just because I was nice to everyone, students, staff, parents, that’s why I got good reviews. My next position was in a different town where I was a co teacher for 4 years.  My co teacher and I planned together, taught together, graded together, communicated together, she just couldn’t see that I wasn’t a good teacher.  I was so skilled at hiding how bad I...

  100% Single Parent Hello, my name is Katie, and I am a single mother.  I have full custody of my daughter and I have MS.   Single parents and only single parents completely understand this.  Single parents with MS get it even more.  I did not understand until I suddenly became one myself with a text that said, “I think we should get divorced.”  God, I haven’t told anyone that because I was so embarrassed.  At the time, he wasn’t living with us and hadn’t been for 3 months.  We weren’t separated, either.   It is complicated.  He hadn’t been around for 3 months really, and I was doing everything on my own.  Towards the end of that 3 months, he was around a little until he wasn’t.  After those 3 months, he was around a little and then he was completely gone.  I was the parent 100% of the time.  Everything was on me.  All of the love, all of the care, all of the safety.  All of the bills and appointm...