I Move Slower So I Can Stay
How I Pace My Life Without Losing Joy
My body has a smaller battery than the world expects.
Some days it drains before morning coffee.
Some days pain arrives like weather, uninvited and unavoidable.
Pacing wasn’t something I chose.
It was something my body demanded.
At first, pacing felt like grief.
Like folding my dreams into smaller shapes.
Like watching the version of me who could do everything walk away without looking back.
I used to push.
Through pain.
Through fatigue.
Through the quiet voice in my body begging me to stop.
Fibromyalgia taught me the cost of that silence.
Now, I move slower.
Not because I’ve given up,
but because I’ve learned what it takes to stay.
I plan my days gently.
One thing at a time.
Space between moments.
Room for rest before the crash, not after.
I listen for the early signals.
The heaviness in my limbs.
The fog creeping into my thoughts.
The ache that says, this is your warning.
Stopping before I’m forced to feel like self-respect.
Joy didn’t disappear when I slowed down.
It changed its voice.
Joy is quieter now.
It lives in warm showers and open windows.
In music that settles my nervous system.
In canceled plans that protect tomorrow.
In laughter that doesn’t cost me days of recovery.
Joy is choosing softness in a world that worships endurance.
I no longer wait for pain-free days to feel alive.
I gather joy where I am.
In the pauses.
In the breath between flares.
In the moments my body allows me to stay present.
Some days, pacing looks like doing very little.
And I am learning that doing very little can still mean living fully.
I am not lazy.
I am not weak.
I am not failing.
I am adapting.
Fibromyalgia shrank my margins,
but it deepened my awareness.
It taught me how to live without burning myself down for approval.
I still flare.
I still grieve.
But I also flourish, quietly, deliberately.
Pacing is how I stay.
Pacing is how I choose myself.
Pacing is how joy learned to survive here.
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