"Finding My Way Back to Myself, One Day at a Time"

Something can be worn, scarred, or altered and still holds value.  Brokenness doesn’t erase strength — it can reveal it.

Osteoarthritis has a way of arriving quietly and then rearranging your entire life.  It's a disease that worsens over time, often resulting in chronic pain.  Living in a body that is slowly giving in can be heartbreaking. There are days when the ache feels personal, when your body feels pulled down by a pain you didn’t invite, when you realise life doesn’t look the way it once did.  But there is also something profoundly tender about learning to give your own body grace. To honour its limits. To celebrate what it can still do. To forgive what it cannot.

Over the last few years, I’ve had three joint replacement surgeries as a result of this disease — all just past the age of 50. I used to be active, strong, and constantly on the move. I felt at home in my body, confident in what it could do. And then slowly, piece by piece, it started giving up on me.

Now I live with scars. They stand out, unhidden, marking every battle my body has fought. These scars draw eyes — sometimes curious, sometimes confused, sometimes intrusive. People stare, and for a long time, I wasn’t sure where to put that discomfort. I used to look away, shrink a little, pretend I didn’t notice.

But something changed.

Maybe it was the recovery.

Maybe it was the resilience I didn’t realise I had.

Maybe it was the realisation that these scars didn’t take anything away from me — they added to my story.

So now, when people stare, I look right back — defiantly.  Not out of anger, but with the fierce certainty that I will not shrink myself to make others feel comfortable. My stare says: I’ve earned every mark, and I’m not hiding.

Because I am not the scars I carry. I’m not the joints that failed me. I’m not the parts of me that have been cut, stitched, or replaced. I am what has survived. I am what keeps going.  I may carry scars, but I also carry resilience, humour, tenderness, and an inner strength I never knew I had. If that makes me “broken,” then let me be the kind of broken that reveals courage and character.

I’m learning that healing isn’t a moment — it’s a way of living.

"And, as always, I will go where the Hart leads."