I'm My Valentine

 

A story just for me...

I once lived inside a life that made sense.

I had worked for years — through training, supervision, self‑doubt, and grit — to become a therapist. Not just in title, but in identity. I had finally reached the place where my skill matched my purpose. I was building a career I had earned with my whole self. I was helping people. I was steady. I was proud. I was beginning.

And then, without warning, the ground underneath that life gave way.

Brain surgery.

Mitochondrial myopathy.

A body that no longer behaved like the one I had trained in, lived in, trusted.

The loss wasn’t just physical. It was existential.

It was the loss of a rhythm, a role, a future I had already stepped into.

It was the loss of the version of me who could work full time, who could hold space for others without worrying whether my own body would collapse.

For a while, it felt like the old me had died and the new me had been left behind to make sense of the wreckage.

But that isn’t the whole story.

Because the part of me that became a therapist — the part that listens deeply, understands nuance, sees people clearly, and holds complexity with grace — didn’t disappear. It didn’t get cut out in surgery. It didn’t dissolve with the diagnosis.

It’s still here.

It lives in how I think, how I relate, how I make meaning.

It lives in the way I navigate my own suffering with honesty and insight.

It lives in the way I care for others, even now, even with limits.

My life didn’t end.

It changed shape.

The old life was linear — training, mastery, career, momentum.

The new life is cyclical — energy, rest, adaptation, creativity, resilience.

The old life was built on strength and capacity.

The new life is built on wisdom and precision.

The old life moved outward, toward clients and systems and goals.

The new life moves inward, toward truth, embodiment, and gentleness.

Both lives are mine.

The therapist I was is not gone; she is integrated.

She is the foundation I stand on, even if I stand differently now.

She is the one who carried me through the hardest years, who built the skills I still use, who earned the identity I still hold.

And the person I am now is not a lesser version — she is a transformed one.

She lives with a body that demands honesty.

She lives with limits that require creativity.

She lives with a clarity that only comes from surviving what should have broken her.

I am not living a replacement life.

I am living a true life. One that honors the before, survives the rupture, and grows in the after.

My story didn’t end when my body changed.

It shifted into a new chapter, one that is still unfolding, still meaningful, still mine.