When My Body Changed the Definition of Progress

When I arrived in San Diego on July 1, I thought I was there to learn something about my relationship.

After 14 years together, Mike and I had never spent this much uninterrupted time living together as a couple. I had jokingly said before I left that maybe we'd discover we didn't even like each other after spending that much time together.

Underneath the joke was something important.

I wanted to know what us looked like when we weren't visiting each other. When we weren't squeezing a relationship into trips and available time. What would it feel like to simply live together?

Instead, I began learning something entirely different.

I began learning how to live with myself.

My Body Was Already Talking

By the time I navigated SeaTac, the flight, all those people, and the San Diego airport, I was overwhelmed.

And within days, more "peopling" lay ahead.

Mike's mom, Miss Rusty, was turning 92 on July 4. I genuinely wanted to celebrate her. I love her, and I knew how important it was to Mike. There was a casino trip and a birthday dinner. Of course I wanted to be there.

But my body felt like it had been filled with concrete.

Heavy. Unmotivated. Lifeless.

I kept trying to push myself through it because that's what I've always done.

For years, one of my favorite sayings was essentially: when you get knocked down, pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and start again.

There was a time when I took enormous pride in that.

As a young military spouse, I knew how to keep the home fires burning while my partner was away helping keep the world safe. I handled things. I kept going. I figured it out.

But I was around 25 then.

I'm 66 now.

And apparently my 66-year-old body didn't get the memo that we were still operating under the same rules.

I tried pushing anyway.

My body said no.

What If I've Lost My Passion?

For most of July, I could barely "people" outside of Mike.

Normally, when I'm in San Diego, I want to see the girlfriends I've known since high school.

This time, I was there nearly a month before I socialized with them.

That scared me.

At first, I thought I was simply fatigued.

Then I started wondering if I'd lost my passion.

That one broke my heart.

Maybe I wanted to retire.

Maybe I didn't care about the things I'd built anymore.

Maybe something fundamental in me had changed.

I was grasping at explanations because I didn't understand what was happening.

I felt out of control.

I was at a loss.

I was floundering.

Then my body began giving me other things to pay attention to: gastrointestinal problems, bouts of diarrhea and constipation, bloating, nausea, and eventually an episode of projectile vomiting during a return trip to Washington for a friend's wedding.

None of that had been in the plan.

My body had changed the plan.

Mike Didn't Ask Me to Perform

Something else happened during those two months that I didn't expect.

Mike and I actually got to experience some of what I'd gone to San Diego hoping to discover.

At first, he thought he needed to entertain me.

When I explained that I didn't expect that from him, I could almost feel his relief.

And as I became quieter and more withdrawn, he didn't push.

He held space.

He loved on me.

He stopped assuming I would accompany him somewhere and instead allowed me to decide whether I had the capacity to go.

Because we haven't had the benefit of living together, I've been learning to process more of what I'm experiencing out loud. I wanted him to understand that my withdrawal wasn't about him.

I simply didn't have much available.

And strangely, being as incapacitated as I felt during July may have helped me receive his care.

I've never been particularly good at receiving.

Had I felt stronger, I probably would have pushed back.

Instead, I had very little fight available.

So I let someone love me without proving how capable I was.

There's something in that I'm still unpacking.

I Started Listening Differently

At first, rest wasn't some enlightened choice.

My body shut me down.

I napped because I couldn't stay awake.

I moved slowly because moving felt hard.

I rested because I didn't have much choice.

And slowly, something began changing.

I had been living under the belief that regardless of how I felt, I needed to get my steps in.

Two thousand steps. Keep moving. Push a little.

Instead, I began asking a different question:

What can I safely do today?

Some days that answer was very little.

Other days, having access to a five-foot-deep pool and beautiful San Diego weather made movement feel inviting instead of obligatory. I could be in the water and spend time with Mike.

I also became more intentional about nutrition. I learned I needed considerably more protein than I had been getting, so I added a protein drink and protein bar and became more conscious about including grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Interestingly, the foods I was choosing began influencing what Mike ate, too.

But perhaps the most important change wasn't something I ate or did.

It was something I noticed.

I began distinguishing between:

"I don't want to."

and

"I don't have access to the capacity required to do that right now."

I didn't realize how often a quiet voice inside me had translated the second one into:

You're lazy.

You're not doing enough.

You're not good enough.

I'm learning to answer that voice differently.

Then Came the Numbers

At my doctor's appointment this week, I learned that I had lost 24 pounds since my June appointment.

My A1C had dropped from 7.4 to 6.7.

Those are numbers worth celebrating.

But this isn't a weight-loss success story.

Because while some markers improved, my body was also telling me that other things needed attention.

I've had gastrointestinal problems significant enough that my doctor and I are now testing whether metformin is contributing to them.

I've experienced considerable fatigue.

I've lost what Mike and I estimate to be roughly half of my previous hair volume over the past couple of years.

And now I'm thinking more seriously about maintaining muscle and strength as I age and lose weight.

So yes, I'm celebrating 24 pounds.

Yes, I'm celebrating an A1C of 6.7.

But I'm no longer willing to let two numbers tell me whether I'm healthy—or whether I'm succeeding.

Something improved.

Other things still need my attention.

Maybe that's part of progress, too.

I Abandoned Myself in the Spring

Looking backward from here, I can see something I couldn't fully see while I was living it.

I abandoned myself in the spring.

I kept expanding.

I kept creating.

I kept leading.

I kept fulfilling responsibilities.

I kept asking what needed to happen next.

And I kept overriding the person responsible for carrying all of it.

Me.

By July, my body wasn't gently suggesting that I reconsider.

It stopped cooperating.

I don't want to live that way anymore.

I've developed a phrase for what I'm beginning to understand:

No expansion through self-abandonment.

It's easy to make something like that sound profound when it's written on a graphic.

It's different when you've lived the cost of doing the opposite.

I CHOOSE ME!

So What Does Progress Mean Now?

I used to measure progress primarily through concrete accomplishment.

What got completed?

What moved forward?

What did I build?

What happened with HHA?

What could I point to and say,

See? I accomplished something.

I'm beginning to define progress differently.

I'm a 66-year-old woman living in a body with its own history, medical conditions, injuries, strengths, limitations, and wisdom.

What can this body safely and intentionally support?

I don't completely know yet.

That's the point.

I'm learning.

I get to define progress, just as I define success.

I get to set the finish line.

And there are things I am no longer willing to sacrifice just to say I crossed it.

My sleep.

My nutrition and hydration.

My health.

My restorative capacity.

My time to receive love from my partner.

Me.

I'm learning to live my best life by defining what that means as I actually live each day—not according to some finish line I established before asking whether my whole self could sustain the journey.

So I don't have a tidy conclusion to this story.

I'm still living it.

I'm still paying attention.

I'm still learning what my body has been trying to teach me.

And the question I'm carrying now isn't simply:

How do I pace myself and still fulfill all my promises?

It's something much more challenging:

How do I fulfill my promises without making myself the price of keeping them?

I don't know the full answer yet.

But I know this much:

I abandoned myself in the spring.

I cannot do that again.