My body changed the plan. It did not erase me.
I did not know a dog bite could split a life into before and after. But mine did.
I was 32, moving through life like people do when they still believe their body is just going to keep showing up for them. Working. Mothering. Doing all the things. Thinking the future was still more or less the one I had pictured.
Then Complex Regional Pain Syndrome came in and changed the whole plan. Not the mild kind. Not the "take it easy for a few weeks" kind. The full-body, rare, brutal kind where the wind hurt. Where clothes hurt. Where my husband washed my hair. Where my kids had to grow up around a mother who loved them fiercely, but could not always be the mother she wanted to be.
That part still catches in my throat sometimes. Because when your body changes that drastically, it does not only change your schedule. It changes your marriage. Your motherhood. Your friendships. Your confidence. Your home. Your future. The way you see yourself in the mirror. The way you walk into a room. The way you answer the question, "How are you?" when the real answer would make everyone uncomfortable before the appetizers even arrive.
I waited a long time for my old body to come back.
I begged it. I fought it. I cried over it. I tried to outthink it, outrun it, out-research it, out-pray it, out-positive it. Spoiler alert: that did not work. Pain is rude like that.
Eventually I had to stop building my entire life around the idea that the old version of me was coming back exactly as she was. And that was hard. But it was also where something started to shift. Because slowly, very slowly, I began to realize something I wish someone had told me much sooner.
My body changed the plan. It did not erase me.
The woman who loves deep conversations is still here. The woman who notices light coming through the window is still here. The woman who wants to make things with her hands is still here. The woman who can laugh until she cries is still here. The woman who wants beauty, softness, adventure, rest, creativity, and a life that feels like hers is still here too.
She just shows up differently now. And different is not the same as gone.
Some days I move slowly. Some days I have to rest before I even get started. Some days my hands do not want to cooperate. Some days the pain is loud and dramatic, like it is auditioning for a role nobody offered it. And on those days, I have learned to whisper back: "I see you. But you do not get the final word."
Because that is the part no one tells you. You can honor your limits and still refuse to disappear inside them. You can build a softer life without giving up on having a beautiful one. You can need rest and still have dreams. You can have hard body days and still be a woman with opinions, humor, taste, creativity, desire, and a whole soul under the symptoms.
For years, I thought softness meant surrender.
Like if I stopped fighting so hard, the illness won. But now I understand softness differently. Softness is not giving up. Softness is freedom. It is choosing what still brings life instead of only measuring what was lost.
It is coloring one page when my hands will not let me do a bigger project. It is writing one honest sentence instead of pretending I am fine. It is sitting in the sun for ten minutes and letting that count. It is making something beautiful on a day my body says no to almost everything else. It is letting myself want good things without demanding that my body become easy first.
That one took me a while. Because when your body has been the problem, the project, the limitation, the thing everyone has to plan around, it is easy to believe you have to wait until you are better to live. Wait until you have more energy. Wait until the pain calms down. Wait until you are stronger. Wait until your body is less complicated. Wait until you can do it the way you used to.
But what if your life is not waiting on the other side of a healed body?
What if your life is still here, asking to be lived inside the body you have today? Maybe slower. Maybe softer. Maybe with more breaks, heating pads, canceling plans, comfortable clothes, and a very personal relationship with your favorite chair. Fine. Still a life. Still yours.
If your body has changed the plan too, through chronic illness, pain, menopause, injury, grief, exhaustion, or some season you never saw coming, I want you to hear this:
You are still here. You are still allowed to want beauty. You are still allowed to be creative. You are still allowed to rest. You are still allowed to laugh. You are still allowed to take up space. You are still allowed to become someone you love.
You do not have to earn the right to be gentle with yourself. You do not have to earn the right to make your life feel beautiful. You do not have to earn the right to still be you.
The hard years do not get the final word.
The diagnosis does not get the final word. The flare does not get the final word. The body changes are real. So is the woman still living inside them.
And maybe that is the quiet rebellion. Not pretending it does not hurt. Not forcing yourself into someone else's version of strength. Not turning pain into a personality. Just choosing, again and again, not to abandon yourself.
On the hard body days, this is your reminder: Your limits are real. So is your life. And you are still in it.
A small place to land on the hard body days
This is exactly why I made Color Your Calm. Not as another thing to accomplish. Not as a project. Not as proof that you are healing correctly. Just as one quiet place to put your hands, your breath, and your attention when your body needs rest but your spirit still needs something beautiful.
The pages are slow, gentle, and easy to sit with. Botanicals, cozy scenes, soft spaces, and designs that do not ask much from you. Because some days, that is what we need. Something beautiful that does not need us to be better first.
You can find Color Your Calm as a paperback on Amazon or as an instant digital download. You have carried enough. Let this be one small thing that carries you back to yourself today.
Take care,
Jill