For most of my life, I have been the person who takes care of everyone else. The one who makes the phone calls. The one who shows up when needed and not needed. The one who keeps things moving when life gets hard.
And over the past year, life has been harder than I ever imagined…
There was my mother’s open heart surgery. There was helping my family navigate one challenge after another. There was running several businesses. There was parenting. And then there was losing my father.
Grief has a way of consuming more space than you realize. At first, it feels emotional. But eventually, it becomes physical too.
The truth is that somewhere along the way, I stopped listening to my own body. Or maybe I heard it and convinced myself I could deal with it later?
The fatigue. The anemia. The hormonal changes of perimenopause. The aches and pains. The exhaustion that sleep could not fix. I kept telling myself that everyone else needed me more.
Now, less than a year later, I am facing my fourth surgery. Most recently, doctors discovered a mass in my gallbladder that needs to be removed. I am hopeful. I am trusting my medical team. But this experience has forced me to confront a difficult truth: You cannot pour from an empty cup forever. Eventually, your body keeps the score.
One of the hardest lessons I am learning right now is that rest is not weakness. When my body feels depleted, my instinct is to push harder. Work more. Exercise more. Do more. Be more.
Yet lately, my body has been asking for something completely different.
Stillness.
Gentleness.
Compassion.
Sometimes self-care looks like a healthy meal or a doctor’s appointment. Sometimes it looks like canceling plans. Sometimes it looks like allowing yourself to cry. And sometimes it looks exactly like the photograph above, allowing myself a moment of comfort instead of productivity.
I do not have a perfect toolbox for navigating grief, illness, and uncertainty. I am figuring it out one day at a time. But here are a few things helping me right now:
- Accepting help when it is offered.
- Taking medical concerns seriously instead of postponing them.
- Resting without guilt.
- Focusing on today’s challenges instead of tomorrow’s fears.
- Finding comfort in small rituals.
- Letting myself be cared for, even when I am usually the caregiver.
If you are reading this and you have been putting yourself last because everyone else seems to need you more, consider this your gentle reminder: You matter too. Your health matters too. Your body deserves the same care you so freely give to everyone else.
I am learning that lesson the hard way. But I am learning it. And maybe that is enough for today.
