This Body is Bullshit

A few months ago I started listening to Hidden Brain. Not because I was trying to reinvent myself or do the work — I’ve been doing the work against my will for about five years now — but because I needed something steady in my ears that didn’t involve murder, cults, or politics. It started making sense and I got hooked. It didn’t fix anything or change my life overnight, but it helped me put language to things I’ve been living for a long time. The way trauma rewires your brain. The way grief lives in your body. The way we chase worthiness like it’s a moving target instead of something we already have. If you haven’t listened, I recommend it. All kinds of topics, not just heavy stuff, and it has a way of explaining why we are the way we are without making you feel broken.

Then today — New Year’s Eve — a close friend posted something beautiful about standing still as the year turned. Breathing. No resolutions. No new version of herself. Just choosing to stay exactly where she is.

It hit me. Because this blog has never been about one rough year. It’s about the last five. Five years of cancer diagnoses, surgeries, recurrence, reconstruction that didn’t go the way I hoped, and learning how to live in a body I didn’t trust anymore. Five years of grief stacked on grief — losing my mom, watching my dad slowly disappear, friends getting sick, dying. Five years of being reshaped by things I didn’t ask for and couldn’t control. This is my therapy, and I’m sorry it’s sometimes a pity party. But it’s real.

Here’s the part that feels important to say out loud though:

I actually have a good life.

Matt and I have a good life. We love each other. We laugh. We have enough. We are safe. I know that and I’m grateful for it. But also — I want more. Not more stuff. Not more success. I want space. I want to travel. I want to be near water and in nature and see how other people in other parts of the world live, slow down, exist differently. Maybe not all their food — I know who I am — but everything else.

That doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful. It means I’m alive.

And then there’s Grace. I am so proud of her it almost hurts. She worked her ass off for her degrees and is putting them to use in a way that actually matters. That didn’t happen by accident. And because I’m her mother I can hold two truths at once — I’m proud of everything she is, and I want more joy for her. More confidence. Less hiding. Less isolation. I want her to feel solid in who she is, not just capable. Happy, not just functioning. Loving your adult child is a strange mix of pride, hope, fear, and knowing when to shut up and trust that they’re finding their own way. I’m still working on that last part.

I am absolutely exhausted by Christmas. Crawl-into-January-on-my-hands-and-knees exhausted. And yet I genuinely love it. I love giving gifts — not in a healthy budget-conscious way, more like a mild condition. If something makes me think of someone I buy it immediately. I don’t wait for birthdays or holidays. I see it, I think of them, and suddenly my card is out. This is why December arrives and I look at my bank account like huh, interesting. I just hope people remember that random Tuesday in March when I bought them something because it reminded me of them. Because that counts. That’s how I love. My bank account would strongly prefer I express affection some other way. It doesn’t get a vote.

FTD is a fucking bitch. Incomprehensible. There are no answers, no roadmap, no clarity on why he’s acting this way or what’s coming or how to help Kathy. Just confusion and heartbreak and the slow loss of someone you love while they’re still standing right in front of you. Zero stars. Do not recommend. I hate it. I hate how unfair it is and how powerless it makes everyone involved.

And yet I still get up. I still show up. I still love fiercely and laugh and want beauty and warmth and water and rest.

What Hidden Brain helped me understand is that when trauma and loss stretch on for years, your brain gets very good at survival and very bad at rest. You don’t stop wanting joy — you just stop trusting it. You brace. You scan. You wait for the next shoe. And then you judge yourself for being tired and reactive when your nervous system has been running emergency drills for half a decade.

I need to say this plainly because I tend to minimize it: I live with pain, fatigue, and brain fog constantly. Not occasionally. Not dramatically. Just always. The kind that doesn’t look impressive from the outside but quietly dictates how much energy I have, how clearly I can think, how far I can push before my body reminds me who’s in charge. Some days I feel sharp. Other days I lose words mid-sentence and forget why I walked into a room. It’s humbling. It’s frustrating. It’s real. And I’m tired of pretending that surviving well means pretending this part doesn’t exist.

For a long time I thought healing meant getting back to who I was before all of this. Before cancer. Before grief. Before pain rewired my body and loss rewired my brain. That version of me is gone. And chasing her nearly broke me.

So as this year turns, I don’t want a new me. I’ve already been remade too many times and none of it was optional.

What I want now is simpler and harder: to stay in my body without apologizing for it to hold gratitude and longing at the same time to stop treating worthiness like something I earn after surviving well enough

No resolutions. No reinvention. No pretending the last five years didn’t change me.

Just me. Feet on the ground. Hand on my heart. Breathing through whatever comes next.

And honestly? That’s enough.