I Thought 30 Would Look Different

What Healing Looks Like

This isn’t a picture-perfect story about healing. It’s a real one. One that is still in progress. The kind with messy days, aching bodies, and small wins that feel big.

I turned 30 this year. And honestly, I was excited about it. I wasn’t one of those people dreading the number. I had a plan for healing, a new surge of energy, and a roadmap for chasing down my goals and dreams. This was supposed to be the year I focused on my health and finally gave myself permission to move forward with the things that mattered most. I have a beautiful life — a husband I adore, two little boys who keep my days loud and full, and chickens in a backyard coop my husband built just for me. I’m giving my sons a sliver of the farm life I grew up with, and for that, I’m endlessly grateful.

But instead of ringing in my 30s with celebration, I spent my birthday at a funeral. A sudden and tragic death in the family, far too familiar and far too soon. It stirred up old wounds from a loss three years ago that we’re still grieving. Since that day, something in me has felt off physically, emotionally, and spiritually. My body has been in a tailspin: five weeks of my body sounding the alarm —  hormones in chaos and a deep, unshakable exhaustion. It wasn’t until I finally started speaking my stress out loud that I realized how much of it had been quietly simmering beneath the surface. Our bodies feel the weight of what we don’t say, and mine had been screaming for a while.

My physical therapist, the one I’ve been seeing since October to help rebuild the strength in my shoulders, recently told me we’ve hit a wall. The pain isn’t improving. The muscle just won’t come back. It felt like I was being fired from my own healing process. Dismissed by my body, abandoned by the plan I thought we were following. And the truth is, I still struggle with the simplest things. Lifting my arms to wash or blow-dry my hair takes effort that I have to plan around. I’m only 30, and yet it feels like my body has given up on me. Some days, if I’m honest, I want to give up on it too.

And as all of this weighs on me, grief knocks again. My mother-in-law lost her father. Another funeral. Another reminder that life can shift in an instant.

We’ve been going to church regularly. I trust God. I believe He has a plan for me and for my family. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel disconnected. Like I’m showing up but floating just above the surface of everything. Faith, friendships, even myself. And yet, I refuse to shut down. I can’t. I have two little boys relying on me. They are my life, my reason for getting out of bed in the morning, the heart behind every choice I make. I live for the noise, the chaos, the laughter, even the screaming and fighting that drive me crazy some days. I am beyond blessed because of them. My life wouldn’t be whole without them in it, and my top priority. My truest goal is to give them the best life I possibly can. They don’t just need the functioning parts of me. They need all of me. The parts that keep showing up, keep loving, keep trying. I want to be wholly present for them, even on the days when everything feels fractured inside. Even when it would be easier to detach. Even when no one can fix what I’m feeling or change what’s happening.

If you’re in a hard season too, I want you to know something: You’re not alone and you don’t have to have it all together. You don’t have to know what comes next. You are allowed to fall apart as long as you put yourself back together. Sometimes the only thing you can do is just take the next right step, even if it feels like your feet are made of lead. I’m lucky enough to have a partner who walks beside me through it all, a husband who is patient with me and understands the messy, complicated parts of me that show up in seasons like this. His love is steady, even when I am not, and I don’t take that for granted.

I’m learning things I didn’t ask to learn. That my body might never work like it used to. That the headaches and the bone-deep pains might be my daily companions.

That simple tasks may always feel like battles. But I’m also realizing something just as true: Life still holds so much good. Even through the pain. Even under the weight. Even when I feel like I’ve drifted too far from myself and I don't even remember who I am. I know that kind of hope is hard to hear when you're in the thick of it. I struggle to believe it too some days. But I’m trying.

So here’s my gentle reminder to myself and to you, if you need it too: Look up every now and then. Breathe in the moment. Watch the way the sun filters through the trees, or the way your child’s laugh fills the room. Let those little glimpses of happiness remind you that you’re still here. You’re trying, and that means something.

I have dreams. Big ones. And this body of mine is making it hard. But I’m going after them anyway. Because the hard doesn't get to have the final say, I do.

And if there's one thing I've learned through all of this, it's that our bodies carry our stress long before our minds catch up. Sometimes the weight shows up as pain, sometimes as exhaustion, sometimes as a quiet unraveling we don’t even notice until we speak it aloud. But awareness brings power. And with power comes the choice to keep going.

So if you're feeling the weight too, know this: You might feel broken. Maybe you even are in some ways. But even then, you still have the power to choose the next right thing. Take the next right step. Rest when you need to and don’t forget to look up because life is still happening around you, and there is still so much worth noticing.