A Different Way Forward

Some days I grieve the versions of myself
that once moved freely through the world,

the identities I wore so naturally
before my body and mind began rewriting the rules.

Now I am constantly shifting -

learning to exist between limitation and possibility,

between exhaustion and determination,

between who I was
and who I am still becoming.

There are days when movement is challenged,

When brain fog clouds simple thoughts,
when invisible battles sit heavily beneath a practised smile,

Yet still I adapt.
Still, I create new ways forward.

Because strength, I have learned,

is not found in staying unchanged.
It lives in the rebuilding.
In reshaping identity again and again
without losing the core of who I am.

I am becoming someone softer in some places,
stronger in others,

more resilient than I ever intended to be
And though the path looks different now,
I continue to meet it head-on -

not despite these challenges,

but alongside them.