As a child, I lived in eight different homes and five different states. Most of the moves were due to my dad’s career changes, followed by my parents’ divorce and my mom trying to survive as a single parent on a teacher’s salary. My brother and I lived with our aunts and cousins during different periods of our childhood. We lived in apartments and townhomes, sharing bedrooms, and eventually moved into a house where we each had our own room. No matter where we lived, our home always looked as though a professional had decorated and organized it. My mom always had an eye for interior design and took pride in her home.

I have personally moved nine times as an adult, and every time I moved, my mom was there to help. She loved moving because it was a new opportunity to decorate. When Ken and I moved into our house, she came over on a weekday and unpacked and decorated our entire downstairs. Everything had its place, and it looked like we had been living there for years. (It hasn’t been that clean or organized since.)

This past week, I went to her apartment ahead of the movers to move a few things ourselves and got a glimpse of what she works so hard to hide. She is very good at masking her disease.

I found grimy bedsheets. Laundry detergent was spilled all over the washing machine, evidence of her attempt to guess where it belonged. Plastic disposable cups sat in the dishwasher alongside dishes that had clearly been there for a while, food still stuck to them. The Cascade detergent (with “Dishwasher” written in bold letters after two previous incidents involving dish soap) was sealed shut and dried up inside.

From the outside, most people don’t see this version of her. Other than repeating herself every few minutes and struggling to recall names, she appears fairly normal. People often tell me, “She’s not that bad!” or compare her to a relative who wore bright pink lipstick and told everyone she was a famous actress.

My (amazing!) therapist reminds me that most people won’t understand why my stomach dropped when I opened her freezer and found mysterious containers filled with who-knows-what. Or why seeing clothes we bought together last month (after she insisted she needed new clothes) still hanging in the closet with tags attached felt like a punch to the gut.

The move itself wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was realizing how much she can no longer do and how successfully she has hidden it from me.

My mom’s decline began after an extended hospital stay on June 10, 2021. Since then, there have been many different versions of her. Every time one of those versions disappears, I experience another wave of grief.

Hopefully this is her last move for a while. Hopefully the seas are calm for both of us.

In May 2017, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. Like many people who receive a life-changing diagnosis, I spent a lot of time searching for answers. After a year on medication that didn’t seem to help and left divots from injections, I began focusing on the things I could control: how I ate, how I moved, how I managed stress, and how I cared for myself.

That worked really well for many years and then everything changed the summer of 2021.

Five years ago, I became a caregiver for my mom. If you’ve ever cared for someone you love while trying to manage your own health, you know how quickly your own needs can slide to the bottom of the list. The routines that once felt manageable suddenly become much harder to maintain. For the first 3 years of this new role, I was purely surviving and some days I still am.

At 51, I’m also navigating a few other challenges. I have celiac disease, I’m deep in the adventure that is perimenopause, and I have PMOS, which means hormones, insulin resistance, and weight management are ongoing companions. Writing all of that out makes me sound like I’m collecting medical issues as a hobby, which I promise is not the case.

This blog and newsletter isn’t really about diagnoses.

It’s about trying to live well in a body that doesn’t always cooperate. It’s about caregiving, grief, aging, nutrition, movement, resilience, and finding joy in ordinary days. It’s about the lessons I’m learning, and relearning, as I try to become the healthiest version of myself.

My interest in health began in 2010 after I quit smoking. At the time, my diet consisted largely of convenience food (the employees at Taco Bell knew my order) and at 35, I felt exhausted. A nutritionist who happened to live in my apartment complex changed everything and I learned the impact diet and lifestyle had on how you felt. I became so fascinated by nutrition that I enrolled in nutrition school in 2012 and never really stopped learning.

So why start a Substack now?

Partly because writing helps me process life. Partly because I hope sharing my journey might encourage someone else. And partly because putting these thoughts into the world may be the accountability I need to prioritize my own health again.

If you’re a caregiver, navigating midlife, trying to age well, struggling with your health, or simply looking for encouragement along the way, I hope you’ll join me.

Welcome to my season of life.

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