I’ve spent a good part of my life fighting my way through hard things.

And for the first time in my life I decided to be submissive to it instead of panicking and frantically reacting to everything around me.

I rolled over and laid down like a dog being told to stay.

And I stayed.

Last year was yet another brutal year living beside the effects of my husband’s chronic illness. Not only did he suffer from a widow maker heart attack, during that hospital visit, the doctor found a mass. Months later our life turned upside down with a cancer diagnosis and a surgery that brought on a painful recovery for him and me. He never bounced back from it.

And in the middle of it all, I was working a full-time job I hated. I was miscast, under appreciated and each day it chipped away at my confidence I had always carried in my career. Then, I was laid off and while it brought a kind of relief, it also brought disbelief and fear.

How was I going to make it? I was already struggling. How was I going to continue to care for all of our responsibilities? Care for my husband’s daily needs? Look for another job that allowed me to be home with him? What about me? Who was going to care for me? I lost my health insurance, stability.

It wasn’t looking too bright.

Literally it felt like one thing after another. It all came crashing down. Nothing seemed to just lay out smoothly. There was always some kind of kink or wrinkle.

And I didn’t care to iron any of it out.

I stayed put and didn’t look for work. I felt rebellious. I didn’t pull myself back up to pick up the lost job piece. I didn’t run after the bone, like I always did. I should have. But I just couldn’t. I felt lost, weak, tired and sick to my stomach at the thought of pressing onto anything new after I was laid off.

I began to question my strong well earned work ethic. Where did it go? Was I being lazy?

It scared me to think “if this feeling lasts too long I could lose everything I worked so hard for. Even that thought didn’t move me to find another job.

I felt like I was flatlining.

I was going through some pretty rough things and I couldn’t always see how it was affecting me. I was so busy repeating the same day over and over again — one foot in front of the other telling myself to just keep going.

I gave and gave, to things I didn’t want to give. I cared for things that I didn’t think were fair for me to have to care for.

But I did it anyway.

What I didn’t realize at the time is that my ability to care for my responsibilities was overtaking me. I am only one person, and I was carrying for more than what I should be carrying by myself.

I had days where I felt guilty for resting and laying in my backyard on my back looking up at the sky taking naps in the sun. Going on long walks. Sleeping in as long as I wanted. Doing nothing but reading or writing all day. I had never really been able to do that. And honestly, I didn’t think this was the time to be doing it.

But I did.

And looking back now I understand clearly that I needed that time. I had to breakdown and reset so I could actually see the pieces of myself I had been ignoring just to survive.

It was a pretty brutal time for me but it was also profoundly transformative.

It humbled me. It helped me see where I gave too much to things that I shouldn’t. It helped me see that I needed to start setting things down that didn’t belong to me. It helped me see that I didn’t have to accept something just because it was offered to me. It helped me to see that If I just stopped, not everything would fall apart.

This time allowed me time to breathe and look up past my feet and see that there could be another path forward then the one I always took.

Not everything has to be so hard.

Sometimes we may fight it, because we are used to everything being hard. But just because it is, it doesn’t mean it always has to be that way.

This is the part that I can’t emphasize enough. We have to shut down to be able to recharge ourselves. We can’t just keep going and going and pretend we are okay.

I never thought I would be able to work again, and see myself as something valuable or find a purpose again. I didn’t think it was possible for me to ever feel excited about my life, or my work after so many things all at once changed for me.

But setting it all down and resigning myself to what was without trying to chase an outcome and accepting things as they were — allowed me to find my courage and confidence in myself again.

I never thought at the time when I was scared wondering how things would work out for me, thought to myself “don’t worry one day you won’t be panicked. You will be purposeful.”

I don’t write lessons, I write life. Life is a lesson. And sometimes we have to sit, stay and listen to what it is trying to show us without running out to pick up the bone the second it’s thrown to us.

It’s that exact pause — that teaches us that we are going to be okay in the end.

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I often remind myself of my resilience. I wear it like armor, proud of how much it has helped me endure.

But lately I’ve noticed how my reliance on my resilience hasn’t been protecting me like I thought. I was using it to endure exhausting situations while trying to maintain the status quo in my life.

I was feeling stagnant and burned out. Constantly holding it up felt safer than setting it down and letting what needed to be revealed, changed or adjusted as my life continues to evolve.

But when I sat it down, I started noticing how easy it can be used in the wrong way because it can shield us from feeling the full impact of our situation.

This is especially true when you go through hard seasons. It helped me keep functioning. And I found it was very good at protecting me from being overwhelmed.

But it was also distancing me from my own experience.

And so from the inside of understanding this, I started looking outside of my life —towards my family, my friends and it seemed that I wasn’t the only one using the shield of resilience the same way.

What I realized is, if we don’t really understand it, it’s easy to just keep using it in a way that doesn’t provide true protection.

And really, I saw how easy it was to allow it to not always help us the way we need —because it all starts with the most obvious and comfortable reason:

We ALL use resilience to keep moving us forward.

We keep getting up each day and carrying on even when it’s hard.

We care for others.

We solve problems.

We keep adapting.

And sometimes, we do it all without acknowledging what may still hurt us, what scares us, or what has changed us.

I’ve learned:

Resilience can make us minimize our own struggles.

We tell ourselves:

“I am okay, I’ve been through worse.”

or

“Other people struggle way more than I do.”

or,

“It’s not that bad, I’m just used to it.”

or,

We keep our pain locked up thinking that it will just go away because we think we are strong enough to hold it in.

We’ve all said these things and or thought this way, and yes, while they help us to keep moving forward, sometimes they can invalidate or minimize our own feelings.

I’ve also learned:

Resilience can hide exhaustion.

Just because we survived a difficult season and on the outside we appear strong and steady it doesn’t mean it wasn’t difficult and the impact of it didn’t affect us.

Just because we are capable, it doesn’t mean we are okay.

When you keep handling things, you think you can just keep handling more. Soon the shield becomes so effective that you think it’s protecting you, carrying you through life effortlessly.

Meanwhile, secretly you’re tired, grieving, worried, running on fumes, feeling resentful, but resilience says:

“Keep going, come on just keep going”.

This can be so exhausting.

Another thing I’ve learned:

Resilience can become part of our identity.

This is a big one for me. And as I thought about it, I could see exactly how It had become a part of me.

And while it can happen subtly, being resilient stops being something we do.

It becomes who we are.

And then one day we begin to fear, what happens if we aren’t as resilient as we use to be.

So we begin to question ourselves:

“What if I need help?”

“What if I need rest?”

“What if I admit I just can’t do it anymore because something seems too hard?

We now just made setting down the shield almost impossible because we’ve mistaken it for a large portion of ourselves.

This is what I had done.

Lastly I’ve learned:

Resilience can make healing feel unnecessary.

I’ve gotten really good at this too. And I can see that my kids have unfortunately learned from me.

But being aware of it has allowed me to guide them so they can deal with their healing the right way.

We can become so good at functioning beautifully and still be carrying unprocessed hurt or grief.

Resilience becomes so good at helping us keep going, we forget to address what we need to do for ourselves. To heal instead of covering it up and just keep plugging along like nothing happened — applauding at ourselves in a way.

I asked myself this question before I wrote this essay:

At what point does the shield of resilience that should protect us become the reason we stop noticing what hurts underneath?

It’s something to reflect on.

Because no matter who we are, we are all facing something hard. And if we are not careful we can allow this wonderful quality to take us down instead of using it to protect us in a way that allows us to grow and adapt.

In previous shield stories, I’ve explored the ways I’ve protected myself when life became difficult. Silence. Denial. Disbelief. Hope. Stillness. How instinctively I reached for them. Some protected me. Some limited me.

If this story resonates, feel free to explore my other shield stories.

You can read: The Shield of Silence here.

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Lately, I seem to be focusing on what I don’t do. Feeling like everything in my life is unfinished.

The thought came over me after a busy week.

“What would I tell myself right now because I’ve been feeling like I’ve been all over the place, struggling to keep things moving like I always have.”

It just flowed out:

“Sometimes you have to look at what you didn’t do so you can see what you did.”

I sat with that thought for a moment. And as I did, I began to notice a pattern.

Things have slowed down for me — In more ways than one, and in more ways I’d like to talk about. Some good, some not so good. But the point is, when your life goes from a constant moving crisis to the next, you don’t really have time to stop and look at what you’re actually doing, what you’re feeling, what you want, what you need or even what you see right in front of you.

That state of survival somehow zaps you into autopilot. Until, one day you wake up and notice the health crisis bell has temporarily stopped ringing. The hospital stays have ceased, the life threatening diagnosis have been treated. The care you gave everyday settled down.

But somehow I found myself still stuck in survival mode. And It felt easier in a way because it kept me moving, always tending to something or someone — never feeling finished, because everything just kept going. It never stopped.

And so when things slowed down — the aftershock felt uncomfortable.

I had to actually sit with myself and my thoughts. And when I did, I noticed I only focused on what I wasn’t doing or what needed to be done.

It even spilled over onto my kids.

I love to walk and I have a goal to walk a minimum of 15 miles per week. I had missed a walk one day. After viewing my steps even without the walk I still managed to get over 5,000 steps. Yet, my first thought wasn’t, “wow, look at what you did.” It was, “I didn’t get my walk in.”

Then my son walked into the door and before I noticed his smile and happy presence — I noticed his shaggy hair and I blurted “you really need a haircut.”

Had I always been like this? Maybe. And I didn’t like it.

I was so focused on looking at everything that wasn’t done, or needed to be done or what wasn’t finished.

It was like I was keeping score in a way that never allowed me or anyone else around me to win.

Even if no one was even trying to.

I noticed unfinished tasks before completed ones.

Missed walks before looking at the miles I’ve already walked.

The dirty pan on the stove, instead of the avocado toast my daughter made me for breakfast.

What still needs attention instead of seeing everything in front of me and all that I am holding together and caring for everyday.

I was overlooking my own effort each day. Which meant I was overlooking the effort my kids and my husband gave everyday too.

When you are managing so much in your life that never has a clean finish you become trained to look for what needs attention first.

Always scanning for what’s missing or what’s wrong.

And maybe that works in some areas.

As a caregiving always noticing what’s wrong.

As a parent noticing what needs attention.

As a business owner, always solving problems and looking ahead to the next thing.

But when I turn the lens towards me, I find myself keeping a detailed record of what I don’t do, what is wrong or what needs more effort or attention.

And sadly, I never considered what it might be costing me.

It blinds me from seeing all that I do everyday and all that I did over the past year to keep me and my family going during one of the most difficult years.

It adds pressure I don’t need, always looking at what is unfinished or what I haven’t done yet:

Money not earned

Goals not yet reached

Unfinished projects

I realize if I keep measuring my life but what remains unfinished, I’ll never feel finished — and that is exhausting.

For now, as things settle down from the aftershock of last year, I choose to look at what I’ve done and what is in front of me.

The small things, the things I used to overlook.

Because the things that I forgot to count are the things that deserve counting most.

This story reminded me of how I used endurance as a shield you can find it here:

The Shield of Endurance

There was a wine bottle on the table that night. It kept being poured, then corked again.

I was at my sister’s house for an end-of-summer movie night in her backyard. A friend sat beside me, going through a hard time. Tears filled her eyes as she poured her heart out. I listened, feeling her pain and wishing I had been more present for her sooner, but I had been so busy trying to piece my own life back together.

Across the yard, was a group of friends laughing and sipping wine. My eyes kept drifting back to that nearly empty wine bottle. Each time someone poured a glass, they re-corked it, as if to seal something in. I couldn’t figure out why that bothered me.

I turned my attention back to my friend and gently reminded her that she was doing her best, that she was stronger than she knew. We continued to speak honestly about the reality of our lives, we hugged before parting, both of us feeling a little lighter for having shared a little piece of our struggles.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that wine bottle, the way it was poured, then sealed again. On the surface, it seemed ordinary, but it started to feel like a symbol. A reminder of how often we try to cap our emotions to keep things neat, when what we really need is to let them breathe.

I was grateful my friend had been so open with me that night. That’s how being with friends should be. Showing up with your honest self, good or bad. That bottle of wine made me think about how often we bottle up pain, afraid no one wants to hear it.

Afraid we’ll bring others down.

Let’s face it, no matter who we are, we all carry something. Grief, stress, regret, fear.

There’s always something under the surface, even if we pretend otherwise. And talking about it doesn’t make you weak, it makes it easier to bear.

Letting your feelings out is like uncorking a good bottle of wine. It allows your emotions to breathe.

I’m not saying you have to pour it all out or emotionally unload on everyone (or drink the whole bottle of wine). But sharing even a little, being vulnerable, being honest, shedding a tear, offering or receiving a warm hug can make life feel just a little lighter.

The lesson showed up again. A friend of nearly 30 years stopped by while my husband was in the hospital. For the first time in our friendship she finally let her guard down. She told me how hard it was losing her father-in-law, how grief had crept into parts of her life she hadn’t expected. Then she shared a few personal things she had been carrying silently for over a year.

We then shared tears.

It was a real moment. I had never seen my friend ever shed a tear. She was always the “happy” one. The one who seemed to laugh her way through life, like she’d somehow skipped the rough parts. In that moment, the two of us, weathered by life, let each other see what was usually hidden. It felt good. That visit changed something between us. It made me realize how rarely we allow space for that kind of honesty, and how healing it can be when we do.

Then years later, another lesson showed up. This time it was through my daughter.

In a conversation we had, she called me out. I thought I was uncorking my feelings and coping as best I could. She reminded me I was getting good at pretending everything was okay, even when it really wasn’t.

I was trying to contain a hard moment in my life once again.

The last year brought a series of mini traumatic health crisis for her father. A serious heart attack, a cancer diagnosis. And everything that came in between that.

I showed up day after day. Keeping everything corked up and telling myself and my kids I was fine.

But then she reminded me of something I didn’t realize.

That I couldn’t keep pretending the past year hadn’t affected us and that it still affects us everyday as we continue to live on this side of chronic illness with her father, my husband.

Tears ran down my cheeks as she continued to share and uncork her feelings with me, speaking the truth of what our lives had really felt like this past year.

Then she said:

“It’s not okay Mom, We’re not okay. It’s been hard. It is still hard. And you need to stop pretending everything is fine.”

In my effort to keep moving forward in the middle of hard, I had corked everything I was really feeling and neatly shelving it.

Especially this past year.

It was making things hard. By me not sharing and uncorking, it looked like to my kids I was living like a robot, like nothing really affected me. Like our life hadn’t really changed. When it had changed and it’s still changing.

When we are living in a hard season of life, we can convince ourselves we have to be the strong one. Or, if we don’t face our true feelings and talk about them, it can make what we’re living through feel less real, like it has less impact on us than it actually does. So we cork it all in. Hoping the hard parts of our life will mellow with time, like a well-aged bottle of wine.

But the truth is, corking up our thoughts and feelings isn’t helping us heal. Or those around us. In the middle of chronic illness, or any rough patch in our lives we need spaces where we don’t have to pretend we’re fine.

We need moments to let our feelings breathe.

That’s not weakness.

That’s how we stay human.

That is how we cope.

That is where strength is built.

So I say, keep the wine bottle uncorked.

Let it breathe. Let yourself breathe.

Don’t hold in your story just because you think it’s too heavy, too complicated, or too different from everyone else’s.

When we uncork just a little, when we let the air in, when we speak honestly, even if our voice shakes, even if it reminds us of what we are carrying, it can soften the weight.

It can remind someone else they’re not the only one trying to keep it together.

Whether you’re caring for someone who’s sick, showing up for your family, or simply trying to make it through another hard day, you don’t have to do it with the cork jammed tight.

Share what’s real. Let someone in. It’s not weakness. It’s how we heal.

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Lately I’ve noticed how my days feel like I am living the same day over and over again.

I’ll admit I am quite structured, my day usually starts out the same. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep thinking I’ll wake up and something will be different. That something will change.

And yet this is the weird place I am in. Where it feels the same because I can’t quite recognize the change.

While many things in my life are different and changing in ways I didn’t expect or want, somehow it still feels the same. Like I am making no progress no matter what I do. And as someone who has always moved forward with change, this middle place feels unfamiliar. Like I am stuck in it, while it decides what to do with me.

I’ve never been one to sit too long in the “but I am trying” space. I’ve always believed you either do something or you don’t. If you want change, you move. You act. You become it. You can see and feel the change.

But I’ve realized something different. That no matter what you do, change doesn’t always equal progress. Because change isn’t always action. It’s also not always an option.

I’ve always measured myself against the past and how I’ve navigated change. But it’s different now. There is a middle part where it feels like nothing is moving. And for me, it’s not so comfortable. I liked the fast-paced changes of my life, my work, how things seemed to move quickly, steadily. And looking back, I would never have thought that someday I would miss the rolling, constant changes of my life. The parts that felt exciting and new.

But at the same time, I realize that I am not the same version of myself, even compared to last year. I can feel the change, and the funny part is, I didn’t have to work that hard for it, it just came. And this version of me is trying to accept it.

And that is the confusing part about all of this. I can’t fully explain it, especially when everything around me still feels the same.

The thing is, we all know that things are constantly changing and I am reminded of that when I look at my two beautiful kids. They’re on their own journey, traveling, learning, finding their way through the tides of life. There is a steady kind of change in them. You can see it. You can feel it. It’s not one big moment. It’s a constant movement forward.

And then there is me.

I see parts in my life that haven’t changed, that aren’t moving.

The ones I wake up to every day.

The ones I can try to change, but don’t have control over.

Things that keep coming back.

Things I thought were resolved and behind me, but still creep back in.

And that leaves me feeling like while the world is spinning, my life is stuck on replay.

It’s not necessary a bad thing, just a reminder that change doesn’t always look like we expect. And sometimes you can’t see it until its already passed and you look back.

If there is one thing we can be certain of, it’s that change will happen.

It will find you.

You can’t outrun it

You can’t hide from it or pretend it’s not there.

And maybe that is the part I am still trying to understand, that it’s asking me to sit for a minute and just be, instead of constantly thinking I need to feel the jolt of change.

As I move through this middle part of my life where it feels the same and nothing feels like it’s changing…

I know it is.

Even if it doesn’t feel like it.

When I first created The Other Side of The Chronic, it was to write about the life I have been living beside a chronically ill husband for the last 35 years. What I’ve come to realize as I’ve navigated this life is that there are so many other parts besides illness that become chronic. In fact, some of the chronic in my life has shaped me in ways that have helped me grow and become the person I am today.

The word chronic has been hijacked by medicine and hardship. Most people hear the word and immediately think of ongoing illness, something is wrong or something that won’t go away. And while that may be true, a lot of what is chronic isn’t necessarily a medical diagnosis.

If you strip it back to its core meaning chronic simply means, persistent, continuing, lasting over time.

But the reality of life is that chronic shows up all around us and it shows up in more ways then we talk about. The roles we step into and in time those roles start building something in each of us. And, it’s up to us to decide if those roles will break us or make us a better version of ourselves.

As I reflect on my life and the things that stayed with me and didn’t go away, they didn’t make me fall apart. They could have, but they didn’t. They ended up helping me see parts of myself I would never have known were there.

My strength, my resilience. How I adapted and navigated through things that I could never imagined. Trust me, I have no special super power. There were times I wanted to run away and hide from my life. But once I stood up to each chronic part of my life it made me stronger. It took time to see, time to realize, time to build upon and sometimes, I didn’t even notice how it was actually influencing me in a positive way.

Chronic comes in many forms and not all of them look the way we expect.

Of course this is the obvious one. Chronic conditions. The medical side, illness, pain, that don’t resolve. The ones the plague you and remind you of their constant presence in your life. This is the version everyone recognizes and the one that gives the word a heavy and scary feeling.

Who of us doesn’t have life circumstances that linger? Chronic situations. Caregiving, financial stress, uncertainty in a relationship, a job. The list is lengthy. These situations can feel heavy and unending. Pressure can build up and make life harder.

This is something that so many struggle with, Chronic emotions and many times it’s not always known or seen by others. Feelings that keep circling back, good or bad. Worry, excitement, anticipations, fear. These emotions may come and go, they may linger or always just be there on the side lines haunting you, pushing you forward or stalling you.

This is a big one and can be exhausting. Chronic responsibility. The role you can’t really step out of. And if you do, there could be serious repercussions. You handle the job, the house, the kids, the dog. You hold things together. You always think ahead and never ever clock out. Sound familiar?

This is something that most people don’t talk about or realize. Chronic growth. When something ongoing forces you to adapt, change, stretch yourself, strengthen, and many times you’re chronically growing not because you chose it but because the situation forces you to keep going, evolving, showing up, even when it gets hard.

When I look at my “undiagnosed chronic conditions,” I realize I wouldn’t want to get rid of them, at least the ones that have helped me move forward in my life.

I’m chronically adaptive. My ability to adapt has been a great part of my success and how I’ve been able to push through challenges. Because when things shift suddenly you don’t have time to freeze in your tracks and figure things out. You have to learn to change quickly, even though it’s hard and even though you don’t know what you’re doing.

I’m chronically tidy. I’m pretty proud about this part of my life. Tidy yard, neat and clean house. Everything is in its place. My space grounds me and provides a sanctuary to enjoy the small things. This part of me has helped me steady myself, and has allowed me see the bigger picture. To realize all that I have accomplished in my life and never take it for granted.

I’m chronically hopeful. I used to think that I was cynical. And honestly, that was wrong because looking back things always worked out even though it didn’t always seem like it would at the time. This is the part where the chronic growth surfaced for me. I didn’t realize with each situation I faced I always held onto hope. Everything worked out as I moved through each challenge, not by chance, but because somewhere in the corner of my mind, I always saw it working out. I never took my eyes off of that hope.

I am chronically determined. Ever since I was a little girl I always had this drive for determination. I was determined to learn to ski, determined to learn to draw, determined to learn to play the piano. And although I never excelled at any of those things, I tried very hard. I never gave up. I don’t always look at that part of myself, the part that has kept me going with the belief of never giving up. My determination has led me to love, live, learn and create all that I have today.

The chronic things in your life don’t always have to take you down. If you look hard enough you might start to see how the things that didn’t go away, may have helped you more than you realized.

For each of us the way chronic shows up in our life is different. But for me, as I navigate life with it, I’ve learned to use it for good. To move from seeing it as something that doesn’t go away…to learning how to use it to move me forward and embrace what stays.

If this feels familiar, I wrote about what it looks like when your mind protects you from what it’s not ready to face. You can read it here.

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I always thought that my shields were my fortress, that they would protect me from my world, save me from the hard parts of my life.

This shield of stillness I believed was my stronghold. I thought that it was helping me keep the external stressors at bay. And maybe at first it did. But not without side effects.

Slowly, I realized that no matter how fortified I felt, I could no longer hold steady. I began to see the cracks in my shield.

Just like a fortified kingdom that thinks it can never fall, no matter how hard it tries, it can be overthrown.

And so was I.

That’s when I realized my shield of stillness was hurting me more than helping. I was using it to avoid a reality I couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge.

I used this stillness as a buffer, because I didn’t know what else to do.

I felt like I was in a constant action packed movie where I needed to save someone. But being still created a wall that protected me from the world that needed answers that I didn’t have. I couldn’t move forward because I had run out of script.

This false shield of stillness allowed me to step out of my role of “savior” realizing that I couldn’t save anyone, let alone myself, if I stayed still.

I was protecting myself because I lacked the emotional bandwidth to process everything.

When my husband went into the hospital five times in less than a year, it was too much. I was experiencing a serious processing pause. My kids and I were at max capacity.

We shut down. Stopped talking. Stopped sharing.

Sometimes things in life move faster than we can process, and in this case, my shield of stillness created a controlled environment, where I felt like I could breathe. It felt quiet and free from chaos. I stood still because if I moved, it felt like I would be inviting chaos back in.

After all the hospital stays and trying so hard to help my husband, I felt helpless, nothing I said or did could have changed the outcome.

I guess you could call it learned helplessness. And I coped by disengaging with everyone around me because it felt like the only way I could deal with it all.

This stillness was never meant to hurt anyone. It was meant to be my fortress, a muffled wall to soften the explosions from mulitple health crisis that seem to come monthly. But what I realized is that the wall that muted the noise also drowned out the voices of those trying to reach out to me.

In my effort to survive the noise, I had made myself unreachable, ignoring the hands that reached out, that might have helped carry some of the heavy weight.

I’ve realized that a persistent shield of stillness can make me seem distant, or uninterested in the people that I love. I now strive to be aware of how it affects not just me, but those that care deeply about me.

There will be more times when the pressure leaks in, and I will probably retreat. But now, as I continue on this journey caregiving for my husband, I know this: I won’t let stillness be a hiding place. I will carry my shield of stillness differently now, intentionally, as a pause to recharge, to gather strength not a place to disappear.

Thanks for reading my stories, liking, sharing and supporting my work.

Lately, I’ve been reminding myself of this.

Being in the middle of remembering when I wondered if it would all work out… and forgetting that it always did.

That middle hard part. Looking back and then forward. Feeling stuck and afraid.

The space where I forgot what I’ve already lived through, and don’t yet know what’s coming next.

And in life, it’s sure to always show up, the doubts, the questioning my ability to pull myself through one more time. So I freeze. Until something familiar from my past finds its way back. Reminding me.

I stop. Look around. And remind myself, wait. I remember when I felt this way before, and yet here I am, moving forward like I always have. I made it through.

My hard won wisdom was showing me the way all along, I just didn’t recognize it in the moment. Because when I’m in the middle of it, I forget.

I forget that every setback, every stall, every hard stretch was teaching me something. How to figure it out. How to move forward anyway. How to stretch beyond what felt comfortable. It taught me that I am capable. Resourceful. Brave.

Even during the low moments when I questioned everything, and wondered how anything would ever come together again.

Looking back, it always did.

I’m starting to understand this now. That being in the middle of what has been and what is coming will always feel uncertain.

But this middle space, If I allow it, does something else too. It builds something steady inside me, knowing that I will always find my way through again.

And each time I sit in this middle space, I gain more. More awareness. More strength and more understanding of myself.

And over time, it compounds.

And I realize it wasn’t some miraculous intervention.

It was me.

My hard won wisdom from each experience. My grit. My determination. An understanding of myself, that I have what it takes, and I know what I need to do.

It’s ingrained in me. It’s a part of me that I have earned.

And it will always be there to help me.

Even when I forget.

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You expected that person to call you back.

You expected to land the writing gig.

You expected the new job you took would work out.

You expected your kids to make smart decisions.

You expected a fairytale life with your partner.

But the call never came.

Someone else got the writing gig.

The job you took wrecked your confidence — the confidence you spent years building.

And the fairytale life you imagined never happened.

And so it goes.

And so it is.

This is the heaviness of expectations. The weight of believing life will unfold the way we planned.

But lately I’ve learned something I didn’t understand before.

The less I expect, the less I carry.

I remember I used to plan my year out every December. I would create vision boards and write out a story of the year ahead — exactly what I wanted and how I expected it to unfold.

I wrote everything out in the finest detail. I could feel it. I could see it. Until the day things took a turn. My life changed — abruptly and unexpectedly — and that perfect story I had written for my year blew into tiny little pieces.

The expectations.

The moments.

The visions.

Everything I had imagined for myself became a blur, a passing thought. Wishful thinking. I never wrote out my year in advance again after that. And I never made another vision board again either.

I remember staring at that vision board feeling stressed, thinking about everything I needed to do to make it happen exactly as I had planned. It didn’t feel inspiring. It felt heavy. It felt unrealistic.

But expectations still show up in my life, even though I’m no longer writing them out or pinning them to boards.

I still have expectations. Expectations that make life feel heavy and weighted down.

Expectations like how my son manages certain things in his life. About the kind of partner my daughter chooses. About how my husband is managing his health… or not.

These expectations make me feel like I need to step in and give unsolicited advice. But every time I do, I walk away feeling heavy — responsible for something that isn’t even my choice. And that isn’t fair to me. It isn’t fair to them either.

It reminds me of a job I once took with a logistics company. It was completely new territory for me. I had spent years in sales and marketing, but I wanted to try something different. It sounded intriguing — like something I could learn and eventually make a go of it. And I certainly tried.

They expected me to grasp the role in six months. I expected myself to learn it even faster, just to prove I could. In the end, both expectations failed. All those expectations created pressure and disappointment.

For me.

And probably for them too.

Expectations can become a toxic, heavy cycle — expecting to expect. And I realize now that just because I have an expectation of something, it doesn’t change this simple truth.

I can’t expect my son to do something he isn’t ready to do.

I can’t expect my daughter to choose the partner I would choose for her.

And the hardest one for me right now is accepting that I can’t set expectations for what my husband should do to better his health.

Each of them has to decide what is best for them.

The moment we start setting expectations for others, life becomes harder than it needs to be. We already carry enough weight from the expectations we place on ourselves. I know I do. It’s something I’ve had to work on.

And as my life has shifted, I’ve realized something else. Letting go of expectations for others has opened a side of me that feels lighter. More easygoing. More willing to let life unfold instead of trying to control it.

And for me, it begins by loosening my expectations of others.

Because the less I expect, the less I carry.

And life feels a little lighter that way.

I thought I knew what helping meant.

I thought caring meant being one step ahead.

Every relationship comes with its share of irritation. As a caretaker, I’ve had to learn how to manage those moments intentionally. Because when I’m tending to the most basic needs, what matters most is that I do it with love and dignity not frustration or resentment.

But that is the hard part no one ever talks about.

I love my husband and sadly most of his days are spent in bed. I’m the one who cares for him. I’ve gotten my steps in for the day because I go up and down the stairs countless times bringing him coffee, checking his blood pressure, making sure he takes his medication, and encouraging him to get up and walk.

I have had to realize and I humbly accept this truth: I’m only human. Between my own exhaustion and his declining health, I’ve noticed my irritation levels creeping higher than I’d like to admit.

My irritation started with a very busy day. I had piled too much into the day. I decided after work I would handle a few household chores and tackle some yard work that I had been neglecting. I was proud of my efforts and the progress I had made.

He came downstairs and sat on the couch. He didn’t say much. Didn’t notice the work I had done. I was feeling exhausted.

As I stood in the kitchen making dinner later that evening he asked for a drink, I snapped back and told him, “Sure, help yourself there’s some in the fridge.”

The fridge is steps away from the couch, yet I was always jumping in to get it for him, even when he could do it for himself.

I stepped away and took a few breaths.

Standing there, I realized I wasn’t just responding anymore. I was anticipating his every request, jumping in before he could even try. I did it all the time. I told myself I was helping, but I had slowly taken over the small parts of his days — the very things that gave him an opportunity to do what he could.

I kept thinking he wouldn’t. So I didn’t ask him, I just did it. Until slowly, I saw he couldn’t, at least not the way he could once do. And in a sad way, I felt responsible for taking that away from him.

The irritation wasn’t really about the drink. It was about how often I said yes when I didn’t have to.

Over time, that yes turned into resentment.

I thought I was doing it all out of care, but some of it was never mine to do. My snap-backs didn’t come from unreasonable requests. They were about me never leaving space for him to try.

Stepping back felt like I was failing him, even when I wasn’t.

I’m still learning where to step forward and where to stay back.

The difference between caring and carrying isn’t always obvious in the moment.

Stepping back also means letting others step in — and sometimes that is harder than doing everything myself.

Letting him try isn’t the same as letting go.

It’s care without control.

It’s carrying what is mine — not his too.

I'm still learning how to live there.

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It’s human nature to see someone from the outside and make assumptions. Without much thought or knowing their whole story, we place people into categories and boxes.

Social media makes it worse. I’ll catch myself scrolling past a perfect photo and think, not for long but long enough, why doesn’t my life look like that.

But that kind of thinking narrows our view. It misses what’s real and what’s underneath. And sometimes, it isn’t strangers making assumptions. It’s the people closest to us.

As my life has shifted, I’ve found myself doing more and more things on my own. I try to cherish the moments I do get to share with my husband. But it’s been hard not to feel like I’m being seen only through the lens of struggle. Or someone who has lost something.

Sometimes it feels like friends or family see me as someone to feel sorry for. They tell me, “you’re going through so much,” or you’re so tough. They make plans around what my husband can or can’t do. And while I know it comes from care, it’s also a reminder of what’s been taken from us.

Yes I am going through a lot, but it’s not all I am. And no, I am not tough. I never said I was. That’s an image people build themselves about who they think I am.

Here’s the real part: I don’t want to be defined by being married to someone who’s sick. But the truth is, that is part of my reality.

I just don’t want it to be the only part people see.

For anyone who has gone through major life shifts you didn’t sign up for you know what I mean.

You become boxed in or narrowly seen only as the single mom, the single husband, the divorced wife or husband, the wife whose husband left them, the wife or husband of an alcoholic. The sister of the sick brother. And so on and so forth.

You somehow become defined by the struggle you’ve been through or are facing.

At times, being seen only through the struggle can feel like I am living in a story someone else is writing for me. A heavy and sad one. One where the main character is always strong and always struggling, but never really seen. That’s not how I want to be defined, because I am so much more than my life’s circumstances.

I laugh, I dance in my kitchen to my favorite song on reply. I have fun, and I have big plans for myself and envision them often. On my daily walks, I daydream of all the hope ahead and all that I am creating everyday.

I may be carrying a lot, but I am still here and I am still me and I refuse to be defined by my life’s struggles. Even if my life doesn’t look perfect to the outside world. I don’t want pity, I want presence. I want people to see the complexity of my life without shrinking me to only what is hard and what is sad.

I want to be defined for the love I give and all the hope I see ahead.

I’ll admit, it’s taken me a while to come to this realization. I’ve had to work hard to stay grounded, to not forget myself, everything I carry, everything I still am, everything I still have.

I’ve read so many stories about people who let their hard circumstances define them, until slowly, they disappear inside the struggle. And I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want to miss out on the life that’s still here, even if it looks different to the outside world.

I remind myself people will always have opinions. They’ll try to box you into a category, define you by one moment or one part of your story.

But none of us are just one thing. Our lives are layered. Made up of so much more than a single struggle or season.

And when I think about what real support actually looks like, it isn’t staying focused on the pain. It’s noticing the rest of the person too, their joy, their blessings, the parts still alive and moving forward. Sometimes even the strength they don’t see yet.

I want to be seen that way. Fully. Not only through the hard parts, but through the beautiful ones too.

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I wasn’t driven because I had it in me. I was driven because stopping was never an option.

It felt like being forced behind the wheel with a gun to my head — just drive, or else.

So I kept driving. Taking sharp turns on unfamiliar roads and doing it meticulously like I was on a life - saving mission. I never let myself think about what would happen if I stopped. Stopping wasn’t an option.

I just kept driving. Sometimes blindly.

I thought being driven was a gift.

A strength.

Proof I was brave, noble, enduring, hopeful.

Words like this played in my head:

“Your so driven”

“She just keeps going”

Being driven made me feel like I had it all together — the road mapped out ahead. Like I was a pro at navigating sharp curves, hills and turns.

But that wasn’t the truth.

One day, I crashed. The gun went off and I crashed.

The drive was killing me. Taking me to unsafe places I didn’t actually want to go and I let it.

Jobs.

Relationships.

Most dangerously, my relationship with what I thought success and drive meant.

That drive pulled me down roads I felt I had to take — go this way — go that way — before I ever had time to ask where I wanted to go.

I drove for everybody else.

My boss.

My family.

My friends.

I took jobs I was miscast for. Start ups. Offering big promises. Growth. Opportunity. I was driven to impress. Driven to make it work.

Looking back now, I realized I was driving right into a wall. If I’d really had my hands on the wheel I would have known some of them weren’t for me.

Each time I stepped in to take the wheel, it back fired. When things felt stale I chose the exciting twisty road — not because it was right for me, but because it made me feel capable. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to empress.

And because of that I crashed hard.

It wrecked my confidence, my self-belief, my sense of worth. It blew apart everything I thought I was: strong, capable, loyal, hardworking.

And why?

Because once again, I grabbed the wheel to save everyone else.

If I had really cleared the windshield — really looked — I would have seen it wasn’t my road. But I let “drive” take over carrying me on yet another long disastrous ride.

That’s when I finally realized I was using this driving force as a so-called shield — a shield that convinced me that constant motion was a clear direction.

It wasn’t.

It was just motion. Moving. Driving without intention.

This drive wasn’t smooth.

I had to step away from the wheel — look around, look back, look forward — to finally see that this wasn’t the road I wanted to be on.

Maybe you can relate. You push hard, because you think it’s who you need to be. What you need to give. Where you’re supposed to go.

And then, it backfires.

Life is winding. Sometimes it takes us places we never meant to end up.

But I’ve found that when we take hold of the wheel intentionally, we have more choices than we think.

Drive doesn’t have to hurt us. It can help us — If we use it to take us in the direction that is best for us.

It can carry us toward the next road we choose — knowing why we are on it, and where we are going.

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The end of my year didn’t close out as restfully and smoothly as I had hoped.

The hallway hospital felt familiar, fluorescent lighting, dry cool air pulling the moisture from my eyes, nurses dashing in and out of triage rooms.

It closed out the same way a few chapters before it had — inside hospital walls, waiting, watching, holding my breath through another round of uncertainty. I thought I understood what these hard moments were teaching me.

But this time was different.

This time, the lesson wasn’t about me.

It was about my kids. My family. My friends. The way they move through hard seasons with me, while still living their lives — and what it feels like to witness from the side, watching them try to support me. Trying to understand it all.

I wanted so badly to be on their side for a moment. To see the situation through their eyes. To understand how they experience these seasons, instead of only seeing it through my own narrow, exhausted lens.

What would I say?

What would I do?

How would I feel?

Sitting through our fourth hospital stay within 10 months, I realized I had been so focused on surviving from my side of the experience that I hadn’t fully seen what was happening from theirs. For the first time, I understood that I needed to step out of my own narrowed view—to see the story as they were living it.

I expected everyone to see it the way I did. To feel it the way I did. To live inside it the way I did.

And that wasn’t fair, to them or to me.

This was the third visit to the ER in the year. I looked over at my husband as he sat in pain. I felt bad for him. He was already struggling, carrying so much, trying hard to regain his strength from the last visit. We sat there together, disappointed, tired, scared and worn down by the year.

From my side, something felt different this time.

I wasn’t anxious to let my family or friends know he was back in the ER. I didn’t really want to tell anyone. There was a stillness in me — a numbness, a feeling that this was just another day in a place that had become too familiar. I didn’t want to talk about it. Not with anyone.

Maybe I was getting used to it. Or maybe I didn’t want to accept that this had become our life over the last year.

Either way, it didn’t matter. We were there again, and I didn’t know how to feel. So I sat quietly. Calmly.

And like it always did, care came for me and my family faster than I could absorb it.

The messages started coming in:

Are you still at the hospital?

Is he okay?

What’s going on?

I felt my body close in on itself. There was a resistance to responding because responding meant explaining things I didn’t yet understand. Words I wasn’t ready to speak. Acknowledging another health crisis before I had the strength to face it myself.

Keeping it to myself felt easier.

Here I was again, inside another uncomfortable moment — living through yet another chronic chapter shaped by chronic illness. Tired. Worn down. Not ready to explain.

From my kids, family and friends’ side, they were worried. Carrying their own fear about yet another hospital visit. Another health crisis. Another unknown.

They wanted explanations.

They wanted resolution.

They wanted hope.

They wanted relief.

And maybe they were tired of another message from me with bad news.

For eight days straight, I walked that hospital hallway. In front of me was my husband’s room and everything we didn’t yet understand. Behind me were the questions and concerns of people who loved us. I stood in the middle, holding both.

It felt too heavy.

When the diagnosis was made, I wasn’t scared. I was just used to it. The words, the concern came quickly, options, explanations, next steps, and then opinions.

And it upset me.

Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? Why couldn’t they just see things the way I was seeing them now, heavy and hard.

I felt myself losing my footing.

When I finally stepped outside the hospital hallway to make the calls, I felt unsteady. Upset. Afraid. I didn’t want questions. I didn’t want explanations or opinions. All I knew was that something had been found, and that alone was already more than I could grasp.

There’s something that happens when you’re inside a moment like this, when it feels impossible that you’re here again. Even with answers, reality takes time to settle. Another condition. Another layer added to a life already carrying chronic illness.

It felt unfair, especially for my husband, who had already carried so much.

But there is also something that happens to those on the other side — the ones watching, waiting, worrying. They love you. They see your pain, They want to help. They want to stop the bleeding. But they can’t.

They are carrying pain too — just a different kind.

And I saw that.

I had to step back and imagine myself in their place, and it hurt, differently, but it still mattered.

I knew I should reach out to the people who cared, the ones who had been checking in. But saying it out loud made it real in a way I wasn’t ready for. I didn’t want reassurance. I didn’t want advice. I didn’t want opinions.

But they came anyway.

And I realized this:

I was fortunate to have friends and family that care so deeply.

People often offer advice, reminders, or opinions not because you need them, but because they need a way to make sense of the pain. I’ve come to understand this living on the other side of chronic illness.

It doesn’t resolve.

It doesn’t neatly move on.

And that’s hard for the people who love you to accept that you’re living inside something that will never be fixed.

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Reflecting on moments like this help me understand things that don’t always make sense when I am going through them. Like my resistance to care when another health crisis hit my family again.

I don’t want to live with my eyes fixed only on the hardest part of my life. I am not the only one carrying pain. Others feel it too — just in a different way. And I have to let them feel it and move through it the way they need to.

None of this is easy.

Not for me.

Not for my kids.

Not for my family.

Not for my friends.

Yes, chronic illness lives here with me. It always will. But so do my kids.

So do my family.

So do my friends.

So does laughter.

So does the ordinary, unremarkable life that keeps going even when crisis taps us on the shoulder.

Watching my kids, family and friends move through this season showed me something I had forgotten: that I am not the only one hurting when bad seasons hit, that everyone has the right to feel what they feel, and that the good things in life don’t stop just because something hard doesn’t go away.

We keep living.

We keep growing.

We keep carrying joy and frustration and hope all at once.

And we do it together — because it helps makes life a little less heavy.

This chapter reminded me that I can stand inside hardship without letting it become the lens through which I see everything else.

I can be in the middle of hard without it shrinking my world.

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The dreaded question: “How are you?”, “I’m fine thanks.” The go-to habit response we all give.

I never liked that question: “How are you?” it always pricked at me — like an annoying label you forget to take off a new pair of jeans. I always tried to dodge it. Because, I either didn’t know how I was, I didn’t want to think about how I was, or I didn’t want to talk about how I was.

That question pricked at me because I realized I had been using disbelief in my life as a shield to cover up parts of me and my life I didn’t want to see.

To accept what was true or real. Good or bad.

And, it was hard for me to do. To really sit and actually answer that question — “how are you?” If I did, I would have to unpack parts I had been ignoring for decades.

I was protecting myself from myself.

Or so I thought.

I didn’t realize how much of my life was built on saying I’m fine, even when I wasn’t.

Which is why I finally understood why I never liked that question.

We all pretend we are okay at some point in our lives. Shielding ourselves from recognizing certain things about ourselves.

And we do it because we think it will protect us. We tell ourselves things like:

Just keep going.

You got this.

You’re fine.

You can do it.

I told myself these things all the time. Disbelief became second nature — it was how I survived my own life. Because if I actually stopped for a second to truly ask myself how I was, I would have fallen apart.

Because I didn’t like it when someone asked me the question, “how are you”? I never asked myself, so I stopped listening to myself altogether. I kept going, ignoring my body and what it needed. People would tell me, “You need to take care of yourself”. “You do too much.” That language was foreign to me. Take care of myself? In my mind, I already was. I walked. I ate healthy.

But I never actually stopped.

And I tried to take care of myself with my small daily health rituals. I didn’t feel I was ignoring my needs. Those micro-experiences of self care felt safe and easy. My walks helped me breathe. They allowed me to stop just long enough to feel something without feeling like everything would fall apart.

My disbelief was protecting me from the truth I was afraid to face — that stopping scared me more than pushing myself ever did, and that I wasn’t actually taking care of myself the way I thought I was. I realized I didn’t choose that pattern; I adapted to it.

Like most of us do.

We say things like:

Don’t stop - everything will fall apart.

Don’t hope - it will hurt.

Don’t expect - it will disappoint.

Don’t receive - it will disappear.

Don’t rely on anyone - it will backfire.

The truth is, I didn’t see disbelief as denial, I saw it as strength, and pretending I was fine wasn’t lying — it was how I coped.

Disbelief became the only way I knew how to hold myself together. But It cost me my peace.

Something I thought I had.

The peace that lets you believe things can be okay without everything falling apart.

The peace that lets you receive something good and trust it will last.

The peace that lets you rely on someone (or something) without waiting for it to backfire.

That disbelief cost me because somewhere in all of that, I lost pieces of who I really am.

Every time I said “I’m fine” when I wasn’t, I drifted away from the parts of me that used to feel grounded — the parts that felt, safe settled and real.

It wasn’t until I actually stopped, really stopped and gave myself a break from the disbelief that I had to do it all, all the time. I finally felt what I’d been running from.

Myself.

And when I did stop, It hit me hard. All those years of thinking that if I slowed down everything would fall apart.

It didn’t.

But I kind of did.

And now I am trying to sit with that, to let myself just be.

To rest and not race.

I didn’t realize how much I’d given up, just to survive. Just to keep going. Just to avoid the truth that everything might have fallen into place whether I believed it or not.

I’m learning I don’t have to pretend I’m fine to keep my life together. I am leaning into really listening to myself, and what I need.

And I’m making sure my strength doesn’t come from disbelief anymore.

~ Marcilina

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I remember I worked for a young real estate broker, ambitious, passionate, eager to inspire people. He meant well, but he didn’t get it. During a coaching call, after I shared where my business was and how I saw it moving forward, he said “ that is just a story you’re telling yourself” he said it so casually, confidently, as if my plan, my thoughts, were a mindset flaw he needed to correct.

That comment hurt. I was caring for more than he knew or understood, stretching myself thin, and I already had so much expectation for myself. Trying to keep momentum in a season where everything was so fragile. I didn’t need correction, I needed clarity — I needed understanding.

So when he dismissed my perspective it didn’t motivate me. His comment wasn’t thoughtful or insightful. He wasn’t really listening to me. He wasn’t hearing my story, he was narrating his own version of it.

That one comment revealed something. It was time for me to move on. But it revealed more than a need to leave — it revealed who I was becoming, and what I could no longer ignore.

I’ve worked with many managers — some who lifted me up, some who tried. The ones who truly inspired me were never the loudest inspirational ones. They were the ones that made me feel understood, capable and seen.

Then there were those who tried to motivate and perform.

You could smell their insincerity.

Even when their words sounded inspiring, I always sensed something didn’t feel real or honest.

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I learned something from that so-called inspirational comment: people influence you not by what they say but how they make you feel. Under the ones who truly saw me, I grew. Under the ones who performed at me, I drifted away. Some people develop you, others perform at you. The difference is unmistakable.

I think we’ve all had moments where we feel like our story feels misread — where someone judged it or tried to rewrite it from the outside. But here is what I know now: your story matters.

When my broker told me that I was “ just telling myself a story” it was a careless comment, because the story I was actually living was hard, difficult and not one I would have wanted to have chosen to star in. But it was still mine. Not his to narrate.

Watching people over the years, their choices, their struggle, their decisions, has taught me to be careful about assuming I know what someone else needs or what they have been through.

I don’t ever want to be the kind of manager, wife, mom, friend who performs inspiration, and forgets the person standing right in front of me.

We are universally human, living our own unique versions of what life hands us. We have the right to see our stories the way we need to — even when others don’t understand it.

Because it’s yours.

Not theirs.

And your story matters.

I’ll meet you in my next story, there’s always more to say.

~Marcilina

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It hit me the other day when my mom sent me a video on Instagram, a man giving wellness advice on everything from diets to menopause, speaking as if he was an expert on every topic imaginable. He looked real, credible, wise, believable.

I forwarded the video clip to my daughter. She laughed, and said, “you know Mom, this is AI.” When I looked closer she was right.

For a minute I felt stupid, embarrassed. Are my instincts of what is real slipping away? I’ve always appreciated the value of realness, real people, real friends, real food. I could spot fake a million miles away. Or at least I used to be able to.

Even my crisp green apple and blueberries I eat everyday. I find myself questioning if they’re real, or if the organic label is just another illusion I’ve learned to trust.

We live in a world where it’s getting harder to tell if something is real or not. It’s infiltrating human society slowly and quietly. It saddens me, because realness feels like it’s disappearing. And once I saw it in that video, I started seeing it everywhere. Because the truth is, we can’t escape it, it’s all around us now.

I saw it again when my 18 year son told me he was considering real estate after watching a Tik Tok video of some kid touring million dollar homes in a fancy suit like it required no effort. He exclaimed to me, “it looks fun and easy.” Tik Tok didn’t show him the hard parts. Aww, yet another illusion. A perfectly curated video showing only the “filtered reality” of real estate. The version that looks glamorous and effortless, omitting the mundane and hard work that actually goes into a successful real estate career.

I explained to him what I’ve learned after years in the business. It’s the exact opposite of what the aspirational videos highlight. It’s hard work, cut throat and competitive. His enthusiasm quickly faded.

I felt sorry for him for a minute. Young and starting out, trying to figure things out, trying to navigate life as the definition of what is real continues to become more and more clouded. And these clouds create a storm of confusion.

The comparisons create confusion.

The confusion creates unrealistic expectations.

The unrealistic expectations create false insecurities.

The false insecurities create pressure.

How can anyone find clarity when you don’t know if something is real, all while you’re constantly being fed only the glorious end results without the effort, the struggle, or the difficult beginning?

That is not life. Life doesn’t work that way. The layers are supposed to be there. They shape us, teach us, grow us, to make us who we are. You can’t fast forward through the parts that make you real, the experiences, the struggles, the moments that make up your life.

Fake distorts life. It distorts reality. It blinds you from seeing what is human and honest and from recognizing what is truly best for you.

It’s like a carrot being dangled in front of you, except you can never reach it, because it was never there to begin with.

Learning to recognize the intrinsic human value in determining what is real and what is fake is priceless, because it protects our sanity, our self-worth, and how we navigate our lives.

Fake and real will continue to blur together. But a genuine smile, real emotion, lived wisdom will always be able to be detected by the human soul. It’s part of our internal instincts that no one can replicate.

Sure, intelligent tools can imitate, but they can’t feel. They can’t live. And they will never know the weight of life.

I’m not here to judge what is real or fake. That’s up to you to decide. But we have to stay aware and realistic in how human originality and intelligent tools will continue to mix, and how that mix can affect us.

In the end, I was proud of my daughter’s instincts. I clearly have a bit to work on in this area. But it reminded me, even in the clatter of it all, that we hold the ability to tell the difference between what is real and what’s not inside of us, we just have to trust it.

Marcilina -

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I appreciate silence. Especially in the early morning while I am reflecting, sipping my morning espresso and sitting in my backyard. It’s one of the most sacred times of my day. But this isn’t the type of silence I am writing about.

We’ve all heard of the phrase “silent treatment.” You could define it as emotional withdrawal. Where someone intentionally stops speaking to you. It’s not a literal silence but a type of silence that creates distance, confusion and tension between people. In my opinion, this is the worst type of silence. A toxic type of silence.

While I am not so proud to admit, I have unfortunately used “life’s silent treatment” in a way to cope, to try to justify certain actions or attitudes I’ve carried. I felt like I had to. Like when I had to quit my Real Estate business and get a full time job working from home to care for my husband. I didn’t complain, I just did it, without a thought. I kept picking up the pieces he couldn’t. I was exhausted and maybe a little angry that I had to start handling things I had no idea how to handle, the taxes, the bills, the house. Things suffered. Even our lemon and lime trees had an unspoken silence in a way. They stopped flourishing since he couldn’t care for them anymore. In fact, sadly they have never produced as much as they used to.

I had allowed unspoken words over the years to cover over so much we had built together. It wasn’t his fault that he suffered as much as he did. And as I watched him slow down, I never spoke a word out aloud about how I was scared, how I missed the way things used to be. Silently I grew resentful of him for really no good reason other than focusing on his limitations rather than his strengths. It wasn’t fair and it made me realize I didn’t appreciate all the moments we had. I took so much for granted. I confused my grief for frustration.

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Life’s silence was not allowing me to see all that I had right in front of me. I remember the last night before my husband took ill. I say last night, because that was the last time the man I married was the man I married. I will never forget that evening visiting with him in the kitchen while I cooked dinner for us, the way we always did, sharing a glass of wine talking about life.

That silence grew over the years, the part where I just kept going, feeling unseen, feeling like It didn’t matter what I had to say because it would not change my situation. No one would understand anyway, I would tell myself. For sometime I focused on what was missing because I was afraid to admit what was slipping away.

But as I kept going, I started to see something I had been avoiding for years. I had let silence grow in all the places I did because I was too tired, too scared, too overwhelmed to speak. I used life’s silent treatment as a shield because it felt safer than admitting what hurt. And that was okay for a while. I had to stop pretending that what happened didn’t matter. I had to let myself say out loud what I needed, what I missed, without feeling guilty for feeling any of it.

I remember the exact moment when I realized that. I was on my walk, tears rolling down my cheeks, thinking about those lemon and lime trees, the ones that used to flourish every February when he cared for them. In that moment, I realized something, it wasn’t just the trees that stopped thriving. It was us. It was me. And I was finally ready to say it out loud. Because I had only ever thought about it.

I finally understood what silence had taken from me, the ability to see what was right in front of me still, while I still had it.

I’ll meet you in my next story, there’s always more to say.

Marcilina -

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It’s interesting to talk with people who carry certain perspectives. Some stay on the surface, while others go deep, unafraid to share what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and what they’ve overcome. I find those conversations interesting.

At a recent dinner party, I was sipping a glass of wine visiting with a friend who had a minor procedure done. I felt bad because I had no idea they were going through anything. This friend has always been there for our family during my husband’s health crises. I apologized for not being there, and we kept talking. He laughed and said, “Oh, please this is nothing. Every time I face something, I feel like I get more superpowers.”

He said it as if a new level of strength appeared with every challenge he faced. I smiled because I knew exactly what he meant. The kind of strength you only earn after life has already knocked you down. And maybe that’s what he meant, not that life gives us superpowers, but that it teaches us how to find them in ourselves. He was learning that.

That conversation stuck with me. I started thinking about how many times we go through something hard and don’t even realize we’re becoming stronger. I’ve had moments where I look back and think, how did I even get through that? And I’ve rarely stopped to consider how much strength it actually took. You swoop in like Superman, doing things you never imagined you could do. And one day, you realize, I saved my world from collapsing. Maybe I am stronger than I think.

We don’t give ourselves enough credit. We keep going, running through life, putting out fires, rescuing everyone from falling, picking up the lost pieces along the way. We just keep going without stopping to see how much strength it takes to keep doing what we’re doing.

I remember a moment when I was struggling to keep up with everything, my job, caregiving, the kids, the bills, the house, all of it. I felt like I was drowning. I took off and went to the beach. I was gone the entire day. I just needed to stop. To breathe. That always helped me, to step away to remind myself I’m okay. To remember that even when it feels impossible, I can still hold it all together. And somehow I always did.

When I finally stepped back into my world, I could see myself more clearly. A new kind of strength rose up, you could call it a superpower. The kind that says, It’s okay. Your stronger then you think. Keep going. You walk through the tears, the pain, and somehow, you come out on the other side stronger. That’s strength. That’s power.

And I had it.

After everyone left that night, I thought about that conversation again. My friend showed his superpower in his openness, being able to talk about what he faced with ease and reassuring himself he was better off by the things he went through because they made him stronger. It reminded me of my endurance, staying steady when everything felt like it was falling apart. It reminded me that I’ve held up crumbling walls. I’ve carried mountains. At that moment I realized we both had superpowers, the unseen strength that only comes from the things that test us.

The human spirit is stronger than we ever give it credit for. When it’s tested, it shows us what we’re made of, the unseen superpowers we never knew we had.

And so, as I trudge forward in this life, I claim my superpowers. I claim my strength, and I am confident I’ll keep building on them.

That’s the power of unseen strength, the kind we all have but don’t always recognize.

Marcilina -

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If you’ve been reading The Invisible Caretaker, welcome back, this space is still the same. I’m just writing under my own name now.

Since May when I decided to finally be brave enough to share my stories that I’ve stored up for years in my notes on my iPhone, I was afraid to use my name. I was afraid my voice was too raw, too real, too honest. I worried I’d offend someone I loved by telling the truth of my own experience. I worried my truth would make people uncomfortable, friends, family, anyone who wasn’t ready to see that side of me. So I decided to write under the name The Invisible Caretaker, that gave me the courage to start. It let me write about the hardest parts of my life, caring for someone I love through chronic illness, finding myself again after feeling so sad and lost from years of running on empty and learning to keep everything together when life changed unexpectedly. It gave me a way to be honest while still feeling safe.

But I realized recently that I don’t need to be invisible anymore. I can share my words and my truth under my own name and feel proud.

I finally feel like I can tell my stories without worrying if it feels too heavy for someone else. People have told me that my stories are too “deep” or “heavy” and they can’t read them, maybe they are, but I am not afraid to share them anyway. What I write is truth and it may not sit well with everyone and that is okay. I am proud of myself for accepting that fact.

For years I held my stories back. I thought my writing was just my way of healing, maybe even a kind of rambling that no one would understand. But these stories have helped me see the strength and power that comes when you stand up to a life that turned unexpectedly, and not in my favor. My stories have helped me face things most people avoid talking about. They have shown me growth. I’ve been through a lot, but I’ve made it through, stronger, more open, and more myself. That’s not sadness. That’s survival.

So this is me, not hiding anymore. Using my voice. Not afraid to create, or to share what’s real.

I’ve held so much in my life. This is me letting a little of it go, finally in my own name.

Thank you for reading and supporting my work.

I’ll meet you in the next story.

Marcilina

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We’ve all hoped for something.

We thought if we hoped hard enough, it might come true. Or maybe, if we just kept hoping, the reality of our situation wouldn’t hit us so hard.

I’ve lived on both sides. True hope and false hope. Both very different, both powerful teachers.

When my husband came home from the hospital with one eye closed after his brain trauma, we were hopeful it would open again. After visiting the eye doctor, he looked at my husband and said, “That eye will never open.” We left his office heartbroken but still clinging to hope. Six weeks later, his eye opened. When his eye opened it reminded me why we keep hoping, even when we don’t know how things will turn out. And that’s what real hope is, the belief in something good, even when you can’t see it.

But hope can shift.

When we learned he couldn’t see out of the eye that opened, we didn’t want to believe it. We went to every doctor, hoping someone would tell us something different. We waited, we prayed, we searched for answers that never came. Nothing changed.

That was the moment hope became my shield, trying to protect us instead of letting it help us face the truth, that he was now blind.

False hope tends to deny what’s real. True hope lets you face reality and still believe in what’s possible.

It’s taken me time and a lot of lived moments to understand how hope has shaped my life and how easily it can blur the line between comfort and avoidance.

Looking back, I see how easily hope can cross that line from something that holds you up to something that holds you back. We were clinging to the hope that things would go back to how they were, instead of learning to live with what was true. We held onto hope so hard that it started to hurt. We thought, If we stayed positive enough, maybe this situation wouldn’t be so real. Or, If we just keep hoping, maybe we wouldn’t have to feel the pain of what had been lost.

I’ve learned false hope numbs you. True hope grounds you. One hides reality. The other helps you walk through it.

I still believe in hope, but not the kind that hides the truth or tries to erase pain. Real hope doesn’t ask us to pretend. It doesn’t protect you from loss or disappointment. It protects the part of you that still believes life can mean something even when it hurts.

Hope has become my shield, not because it blocks the hard things, but because it lets me walk through them without losing myself. And that’s what I hold onto now, the kind of hope that helps me face what’s real and still believe there’s something good ahead.

Reflection for Today?

Where in your life are you holding onto hope? Does it help you face what’s real or protect you from it?

Until next time, take care of yourself.

Xoxo - Marcilina

P.S If this resonates with you please like, share and subscribe for more of my stories and reflections.

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