from the VAULT
Blame has its place.
Sometimes blame is simply the truth.
MS did this.
That person did that.
Something was taken.
Something was broken.
Something happened to me that I did not choose and did not deserve.
I am not interested in pretending otherwise.
Blame can name the person.
The disease.
The failure.
The loss.
It can explain exactly how the wound got there.
But blame has a limit.
Blame explains the wound.
Choice decides what happens next.
That does not mean everything in life is a choice.
That is bullshit.
MS was not a choice.
Trauma was not a choice.
What other people did, failed to do or took from me was not a choice.
The damage is real.
Some of it cannot be repaired.
Some of it still lives in my body.
Some of it still shows up in my reactions before I even know it is there.
I am not going to positive-think my way out of damaged nerves, old grief or things that should never have happened.
But what happens next still contains choices.
Not unlimited choices.
Not fair choices.
Sometimes not very many choices at all.
But some.
I could have made my pain the whole room’s problem.
I could have stayed angry and made everybody around me live inside that anger.
I could have treated my grief like permission to stop owning what I did with it.
And I have gotten it wrong.
I have let pain spill out sideways.
I have been short.
Angry.
Lost inside what had happened to me.
Illness explains some of that.
It does not excuse everything.
The people I love did not give me MS.
They did not create every piece of old damage I walked into this life carrying.
They should not have to pay for it every day just because they are close enough for me to hand it to them.
That is where choice starts to matter.
Not because choice erases the damage.
Because choice decides where the damage goes next.
Does it stop with me?
Do I repair things when it spills?
Or do I keep dragging it through every room I enter?
I have limited energy now.
That is not a metaphor.
MS makes sure of that.
Every day comes with a real bill.
Walking costs something.
Thinking costs something.
Pain costs something.
Being present costs something.
So I have to ask myself:
How much of that energy am I still willing to feed to damage that cannot be undone?
How much of my life does it still get?
Both hands?
The whole room?
Every hour?
Because I want those hands for something else.
I want that energy for the life that is actually here.
My wife.
My girls.
My work.
My home.
A conversation.
A laugh.
A decent meal.
A day that still feels like mine.
The old damage already took enough.
It does not get everything that came afterward too.
That does not mean I forgive everybody.
Some people have not earned forgiveness.
It does not mean I pretend nothing happened.
It happened.
It does not mean I call MS a gift.
MS is not a gift.
It is a disease.
It damaged my body and changed the course of my life.
Putting something down does not make it good.
It does not make it right.
It just means I am no longer willing to carry it every minute.
And I am not pretending I have mastered this.
Some days I pick the same shit right back up.
Some wounds are heavy because they are still wounds.
Some anger returns.
Some grief has its own key to the house.
This is not enlightenment.
It is a decision I have to keep making.
Am I going to keep dragging this old damage?
Am I going to keep letting it occupy my hands, my energy and my life?
Or am I just gonna put that heavy shit down?
Choices matter.
Not because they erase the damage.
Because they decide what happens next.
Not erased.
Not forgiven.
Not forgotten.
Just put down.
Not carried every hour.