I got up from my desk after painting for about an hour.

My body was stiff, but that’s normal. I’ve learned how to move through that first part. I just needed new paint water. The sink is only a few feet away.

But those few feet felt like miles.

I made it to the sink. Rinsed the jar. Filled it again. Turned to walk back.

By the third step, my left knee caught.

Sharp. Sudden. The kind of pain that makes your whole body react before you can think.

I stumbled.

I didn’t fall.

I lost control of the jar.

I stood there for a second, trying to steady myself, my knee still pulsing, that sharp pain lingering just enough to make me move carefully.

All I wanted was to sit back down.

All I wanted was to not feel that again.

And underneath that was something louder.

I should be able to get my own paint water.

My body hasn’t caught up since the end of winter.

It’s been one thing layered on top of another, and now I’m back to the baseline that doesn’t really go away.

My left foot feels bruised when I walk on it. I favor it without thinking, and now my knees hurt more. My back is tight. My shoulders are tight.

It feels like when one thing goes out of place, everything else follows.

I haven’t slept well in a month.

Every two hours, the pain wakes me up. I have to move. If I don’t, I wake up so stiff I can barely get going. So I shift. Reset. Try again.

Morning comes whether I slept or not.

And life doesn’t pause.

I still take us to appointments and therapies. I still make sure the things that matter happen.

But everything else has changed.

Some days I get up, get us where we need to go, and come straight back to bed.

Afternoons bring a crash that isn’t sleep. It’s deeper than that. A kind of fatigue that asks for stillness, not rest.

Even sitting hurts right now.

Plastic folding chairs in a waiting room shouldn’t matter. On a normal day, they don’t.

Right now, fifteen minutes in one leaves the backs of my thighs feeling bruised. I get up. I walk.

Because if I stay still too long, my body locks up on me.

The pain is one thing.

You get used to pain.

But this part is harder.

Feeling stuck inside a body that won’t do what you know it can do.

I used to work full time, go to school full time, and still make time to parent and spend time with friends.

I could finish chemistry in the science wing and make it across campus to my math class in under ten minutes without thinking about it.

I could shorten my night by a few hours and barely notice it the next day.

Now everything has a cost.

Walking through a large store.

Standing too long.

Driving on the wrong day.

Sometimes it means I need a wheelchair in big places.

Sometimes it means I can’t make plans at all, because I already know the afternoon crash is coming.

Rae asked me the other day if I could take her to the thrift store.

She said she could take Royce in with her so I wouldn’t have to.

I had to tell her no.

The pain in my shoulder had climbed into my neck and turned into a migraine I couldn’t get under control. I couldn’t focus enough to drive safely.

I hated saying it.

I hated being the reason plans changed.

I hated that something so simple felt out of reach.

Then she said, “Do you want me to take Royce to the park so you can rest?”

And she did.

She accepted my limitations easier than I do.

She changed the plan without making it a big deal. Took her baby brother outside so I could lay down and try to sleep it off.

That’s what my kids are learning in this season.

Not perfection.

Not pushing through everything.

They’re learning how to show up.

How to adjust.

How to be gentle with someone who is struggling.

Sometimes I still think it.

This isn’t fair.

Not in a dramatic way. Just in a quiet, tired way.

And it’s lonely.

People don’t see this part.

They don’t see what it takes to do things that used to be easy. They don’t feel the cost of it.

There’s fear too.

Fear that it will get worse.

And I don’t know if I can handle worse.

I don’t know if I can ask my family to handle worse.

This is hard because pain wears you down.

It hurts. It’s exhausting. It can pull you into a place that’s hard to climb out of if you let it.

And still—

I want to be here.

I’m learning to love my life more than I hate my pain. For me, that is the only option.

I still want to be here.

I still want to be Mimi to my kids.

And some days, that has to be enough.