If DDC 2021 met DDC 2026, she probably wouldn’t recognize her.

She’d spend the first few minutes asking questions.

What happened to your spark?

Why don’t you laugh as much anymore?

When did you stop planning girls’ nights and random Tuesday adventures?

Why do you stay home so much?

When did you stop blogging?

Why are you so quiet?

And then she’d ask the question that hurts the most.

“What happened to me?”

I wish I had a simple answer.

I could tell her that Multiple Sclerosis happened.

Depression happened.

ADHD happened.

Stress happened.

Perimenopause happened.

Maybe even years of carrying more than I realized happened.

But none of those answers would fully explain why she no longer recognizes herself in me.

The hardest part hasn’t been learning to live with MS.

The hardest part has been grieving the woman I used to be while trying to become someone I never expected to meet.

I miss the way my brain used to work.

I miss finding the perfect word without searching for it.

I miss making people laugh with a callback to something they said an hour earlier.

I miss walking into a room already thinking about how to bring people together.

I miss blogging because the words used to arrive faster than I could type them.

Now they often feel trapped somewhere just beyond my reach.

People say Multiple Sclerosis is an invisible disease.

Sometimes that’s true.

Most people don’t see the battle happening inside my mind.

They don’t see me searching for a word that used to come effortlessly.

They don’t see the grief that comes from feeling like a stranger inside your own life.

I used to describe myself as outgoing.

Effervescent.

Now I spend many evenings at home with an audiobook.

I’ve noticed something strange about that.

I can almost measure my isolation by the number of books I read.

The higher the number climbs, the quieter my life has become.

It’s only July, and I’ve already finished 28 books.

Books haven’t replaced people.

They’ve simply kept me company.

I’ve stopped blogging.

I’ve stayed in a job I’m afraid to leave because I no longer trust my own abilities the way I once did.

Little by little, fear has made my world smaller.

Last week I met another woman with MS at physical therapy.

She was using a walker.

I only said hello.

Later, I wondered if I wasn’t avoiding her at all.

Maybe I was avoiding the fear she represented.

Or maybe I was avoiding the grief we would’ve recognized in each other without saying a word.

Today, though, I decided to write.

Not because the words suddenly came back.

They didn’t.

I wrote because I was tired of waiting until everything felt normal again.

Maybe this is what hope looks like now.

Not pretending I’m the woman I was in 2021.

Not believing I’ve lost her forever either.

Just trusting that somewhere underneath the grief, the doctor’s appointments, the diagnoses, and the fear…

I’m still here.

Maybe DDC 2021 wouldn’t recognize me right away.

But I hope if she stayed awhile, she’d still recognize my heart.

And maybe…

she’d remind me that it’s okay to keep becoming.

DDC

Lesson: Grief isn’t limited to losing people. Sometimes the hardest grief is mourning the version of yourself you thought you’d always be. Healing begins when you stop waiting to become your old self and start giving your present self permission to have a voice.

Question: Have you ever grieved a version of yourself that no longer exists? What helped you begin accepting—and even appreciating—the person you’re becoming?