The past month has been a whirlwind.
My mom passed away. My dog tore her ACL. I got a puppy.
In other words, life has been a little chaotic.
Grief has a strange hold on me. I’m utterly devastated by the loss of my mom. My heart just hurts.
A year ago, I moved in with her for what I assumed would be a two-month stay. It ended up becoming permanent. Mom could no longer live alone, and she was far too stubborn to move closer to me. It wasn’t exactly an ideal arrangement since I worked an hour and a half away, but I thought I could make it work.
Then I got sick.
Not a typical flare—though, honestly, none of my flares have ever been typical—but a life-altering shift in my disease that I’m still trying to recover from nine months later.
Now I’m living in what feels like the upside down.
I have a beautiful home. I was raised here. Yet it doesn’t feel like mine. Every room holds memories. Every corner feels occupied by ghosts. Over the past month, I’ve been trying to make the house feel more like my own. I’ve pulled things out of storage, rearranged family photos, moved furniture, and redecorated in ways that better reflect me.
It helps.
A little.
But the more I do, the more I’m reminded that I’m still not well.
Everything feels physically harder than it should. I do a load of laundry and need to rest. I clean a bathroom and need to rest. I run an errand and need to rest. Life has become a constant cycle of stop, recover, repeat. It’s frustrating, exhausting, and a daily reminder that my body is still calling the shots.
The hardest part is that my life doesn’t feel like it’s here.
I have family nearby and a handful of friends, but I still feel isolated. Lonely. Stuck between the life I had and whatever comes next.
Now that the funeral is behind me, I’m supposed to be figuring out the future. The problem is that the future feels incredibly uncertain. I’m still not cleared to return to work, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know if I’m capable of returning right now.
Caring for my mom didn’t leave much room to care for myself.
Health-wise, I’m significantly better than I was in September 2025, and for that I’m grateful. But if I had to put a number on it, I’d say I’m operating at about 60% of my former capacity.
For someone who has spent her entire life pushing through pain, fatigue, and whatever obstacle happened to be in front of her, learning to live within those limits may be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
Now I have to care for my sweet Finni Roux as she recovers from ACL repair surgery. That means eight weeks of recovery, crate rest, medication schedules, and making sure she doesn’t decide she’s suddenly an Olympic athlete.
I’ve already committed to sleeping on the couch—or possibly the floor—just to keep her close since she’s not allowed on the furniture. I’ll be carrying her hefty little body up and down the stairs, catering to her every need, and reassuring her that this temporary indignity is for her own good.
At the same time, I’ll be trying to convince a puppy that the entire house is not, in fact, his personal bathroom.
I had hoped to take a relaxing vacation this summer—a chance to reset after everything that’s happened. But Finni’s surgery requires a lot of care and, unfortunately, a lot of money. So vacation will have to wait.
For now, my focus is on healing—hers and mine. Neither of us is moving as quickly as we’d like, but we’re both moving forward. Some days that means making progress. Some days it means simply making it through the day.
Until then, you’ll find me somewhere between grief and hope, carrying a dog, chasing a puppy, and trying to figure out what the next chapter looks like. And honestly, that’s enough for now.
Aidan James
Leave a Reply