New Year Without Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions look different when you are chronically ill.

I saw a tiktok today that stopped me in my tracks...

It said that while others hope to level up, chase dreams, and make big moves, people like us hope for fewer flare ups, more energy, less pain, and the strength to keep going.

Someone commented that they forgot what it even feels like to feel normal... I hearted it.

That comment hit harder than anything else.

Because that is the part no one wants to talk about...

I am not normal.

I do not remember normal.

I do not remember waking up without scanning my body first.

I do not remember moving without calculating pain.

I do not remember leaving the house without my fibromyalgia bag.

I do not remember making plans without mentally factoring in exhaustion, cancellations, and recovery time knowing this will cause a flare up.

I do not remember a day where my body was not something I had to manage.

January is supposed to be about fresh starts.

Clean slates. Big energy. Vision boards and goals and hope wrapped in shiny words.

I tried that once. My vision board remains full of unfulfilled dreams.

Now when I look at it, it just makes me sad..Because i don't know if any of that will actually happen anymore. In fact everyday the dream keeps getting smaller and smaller...further and further away...

But when you live with chronic illness, January feels cruel...

It is a reminder of everything you are not able to do all others can do.

A reminder that time keeps moving even when your body does not cooperate.

A reminder that the world expects progress while you are just trying to survive each day.

My resolutions are not ambitious.

I do not want more. No. Not anymore.

This year?

I want less.

Less pain.

Less flares.

Less explaining myself.

Less Anxiety.

Less panic attacks.

Less managing a body that never rests.

Less waking up already exhausted- Mentally. Emotionally. Physically.

Less being on alert.

Less scanning for danger.

Less watching, monitoring, checking, bracing.

Less living like something bad could happen at any moment.

Less caregiving on top of chronic illness.

Less carrying two bodies when I can barely carry my own.

Less responsibility that never shuts off.

Less guilt for all I can't do.

Less emotional labor.

Less mental labor.

Less physical labor.

Less doing. Thinking. Planning.

Less explaining my pain, my limits, my reactions, my exhaustion.

Less crying.

less breakdowns.

Less being misunderstood and still having to show up anyway.

Less chaos.

Less noise.

Less crisis mode.

Less surviving.

I don’t want more growth.

I don’t want more goals.

I don’t want more strength.

I want less.

That’s my resolution.

That’s my prayer.

That’s all I have left to ask for.

I want to wake up one morning and not hurt. That is it.

That is the dream.

And I hate how small that sounds to people who have never lived inside a body like this.

Chronic illness is not inspiring.

It is not a journey.

It is not temporary.

It is not something that builds character in a pretty way.

It is waking up tired of being strong.

It is waking up wishing you didn't have to keep doing this again and again and again.

It is being brave when you do not want to be.

It is mourning the version of yourself that existed before pain became permanent.

There is grief in every new year.

Grief for what I hoped this year might be.

Grief for what I had hoped my life would be by now.

Grief for what my body will not allow.

Grief for the fact that there is no finish line.

No cure date.

No moment where this ends and my old life begins again.

Some people get to dream forward.

Some of us are just trying not to drown.

This January, I am not hopeful.

I am tired. I am sad. I am angry. I am still here, but that is not the same as thriving.

I am not setting goals.

I am setting boundaries with my body and with my expectations of myself.

If you are chronically ill and January feels heavy, you are not broken.

You are responding honestly to a life that requires more endurance than most people will ever understand.

This is not a fresh start.

It is another year of carrying pain quietly.

And never being understood.

If they lived it...they would.

And if you do?

then you understand.

And if you do?

I am sorry.

Some days, that truth deserves to be written without being wrapped in hope.

“My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.” Psalm 119:28

Kristen, Unfiltered Xo 💋