I am in the messy middle of my life.
Not the beginning, when everything still feels like clay. Wet, moldable, brimming with possibility. And not the end, when threads have been tied off and stories are stitched into something you can finally make sense of. I’m here, in the thick of it. In the in between. Healing from chronic pain and somehow learning to live with chronic fatigue, trying to shape what might be next.
Trying to find purpose in pain when the path ahead feels tender and unfinished.
She cleared out all of her old ideas of things, until she could hear her own joy with almost no effort at all.
-Sara Avant Stover, The Way of The Happy Woman
As I have talked about previously on here. I had a hysterectomy after years of fighting hormones that felt like they were clawing their way through my insides. Endometriosis pain stretched across entire seasons of my life.
And then there was my business. It was finally thriving, finally fun. Something my mom built with her hands and heart. But my body whispered then shouted then raged to get me to listen to its unmistakable limits.
Even sitting at the piano. The place that once felt like oxygen became something my body could no longer hold. Notes I used to float through now feel heavy, unsteady, often impossible.
Chronic pain doesn’t just take.
It rearranges.
It remodels.
It forces you into corners you didn’t see coming.
And here I am again, in this messy middle. Sorting out the parts of me that remain. Trying to decide what pieces go where, and to whom, and how much. Because there is only so much of me to go around.
My days are short. My energy is rationed. I can’t just “get up earlier” or “push harder” or “stretch the day.” Those tricks don’t work in this body.
I have learned, painfully, that pushing past limits costs me days, sometimes weeks, of recovery. I don’t slip gently into tired. I crash into a wall of pain with no warning and no buffer. There is no bouncing back.
I don’t have a reserve tank anymore.
I remember when I did.
I remember using an entire day to make snacks and treats for my family, cleaning the house, bathing my littles, tucking them into bed.
I remember being so tired, but feeling full. Like life had weight and meaning and movement. I loved looking at what I had accomplished.
Now?
I can get that same level of bone deep exhaustion from five minutes of washing the dishes.
And that, sadly, is not an exaggeration.
This isn’t “just midlife.”
This is chronic pain. And chronic fatigue. And chronic limitation.
But here’s the truth I’m holding onto-
The messy middle is still a valuable place. A real place. A sacred place of hope. A place worth tending.
And I’ve learned that healing isn’t found in the before or the after.
It’s found right here.
In the slow, intentional steps we take when life has to narrow down.
For me, one of those steps is forest therapy.
Where Forest Therapy Meets Healing Journey
In this season, forest therapy has become one of the few places where my body and my motivation find agreement.
It isn’t hiking. It isn’t performance. It isn’t even about movement.
It’s a return to your own breath. It is nature therapy in its gentlest form.
A soft doorway into emotional healing, grounded presence, and quiet hope.
A reclaiming of the parts of yourself that pain has tried to scatter.
A gentle companionship in the places of life that feel undone.
In the forest, I don’t have to be anything for anyone.
The trees don’t ask me to push. The moss doesn’t question my intentions. The forest simply holds space.
And in that space, I remember that even when life feels broken, I’m not.
I think healing is like that.
Quiet. Nonlinear. Messy.
More felt than understood.
And every time I enter the forest, I feel like I step onto a “ladder of hope.”
The Ladder of Hope by me
You climb it not in leaps
But in breaths.
You rise not by strength
But by softness.
The rungs are made of moments—
A bird call,
A sunbeam,
A place to sit.
And every rung you step on
Whispers the same truth:
You’re still rising.
These are small moment that lift me enough to keep going. Not giant steps. Not perfect healing. Not having everything sorted.
The middle is messy. But it’s also alive. It’s also becoming. It’s also sacred ground.
And maybe, purpose isn’t something we chase.
Perhaps it is something that can grow. Slowly, gently, sturdily. If we let it.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words. And never stops— at all.
-Emily Dickinson
Wherever you find yourself today, whether you’re living your own messy middle or standing at the edge of it, may you find one small rung of hope. One quiet moment. One breath of space.
Chronic pain has rerouted my life more times than I can count. It has taken me down roads I never meant to travel.
It’s like my GPS is stuck on the back roads setting as I travel cross country. Not quite the way I’d planned. A lot bumpier. Requiring a slower pace. And focused attention. It is often lonely. And misunderstood.
Sometimes a path calls for you to walk alone. And still, it is beautiful.
-Angie Weiland- Crosby
There are places where the forest tends us and our own breath begins to feel like a home again.
Let the air touch your face. Let the light filter in.
Climb one rung of your ladder of hope.
Just one. This will look different for each one of us. Rightly so.
We are still rising.
And that matters.
Winter, come rest your soul on autumn’s weary head. Twirl, shimmer, soften, before tucking fall into bed.
-Angie Weiland-Crosby
SUNBEAM ACRES 