Liverpool.
Way back in time, over 60 years ago in Everton which is in Liverpool a boy was born, the 3rd of what would become 7 kids, so including mum and dad there was nine of us living in a 2 bedroom house with no bathroom just three wall’s with a basic latched door in the backyard that was the toilet… it was tough but it was what we had, we didn’t know anything else so just enjoyed the love, very rare treats and good mate’s we had.
Jumping forward several decades I’d travelled to more than 20 countries and participated in sports most people would never ever think about, let alone try, I’d had fast bikes, fast cars, great well paid jobs and big houses. So for 20 of my 45 years I had a great and very privileged life which considering my very basic beginnings, I was proud of myself.
I’d moved from England to Colorado in the U.S. to marry a woman I honestly believed loved me, between the two of us we had a very good annual income, on saying that we both worked damn hard.
Two years after I moved there and was so happy living “the dream” I was really shocked when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, initially I just thought I was so much better, I was so lucky so the disease wouldn’t effect me as it did for everyone else, it couldn’t do… I was Stefan the kid born in a few steps up from poverty but fought his way out and made good. For the first 4 years I remained positive until my wife totally forgot about the ” for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health” and decided to have an affair and then divorced me. Obviously I was shocked, deeply hurt and frightened, I mean here I was having to leave the life I had previously thought of as fantastic, we, my wife and I had some great friends, or so I thought, but for some reason they all sided with her even though it was her that was being unfaithful. I think she being an American in America found it easy to justify why her English husband who’d got MS and unable to fulfil his husband’s duties deserved to be cheated on and divorced.
I suppose it would have been easy to feel bitter and depressed but that’s not me, I’m the kid from Liverpool with nothing, but against all odds made something of himself.
The disease is a shitty thing (excuse me) but I’m better than that, yes Dona, the ex took me for everything I had, I lost my $500k house, my friends….. ha!!! I went into $100k debt, but all of that was then, not now… Now I’m better off, now I’m following a specific plan that works, now I don’t have an unfaithful wife, now I’m on my own and the only one that will make my life better is me…
I’m happy I’m alone and proud of what I’m doing, it’s not easy but then again nothing worth having is easy, I am healing myself physically and mentally and nothing or no one will stop me, I am better than the disease, I’m better than a selfish, unfaithful wife, it’s no one’s fault I got sick but it’s my responsibility to be the best Me I can be…