This Is How I Live Now

I wake up already aware of the limits of the day. Not scanning for pain, not surprised by it — just accounting for it. Before anything else happens, I know what kind of morning this is going to be and what that means for the rest of the day.

This isn’t something I think through consciously anymore. It shows up in how I move out of bed, how long I sit before standing, how I decide what comes first and what might wait. The planning happens quietly, almost automatically, because it has to.

There was a time when I expected this to pass. When I treated it like a phase or a setback. That expectation faded without announcement. Nothing dramatic changed. I just stopped waiting for a return to how things used to be.

Now this is the version of life I move through. Not worse in a dramatic sense — just different in ways that matter constantly. Energy is measured. Movements are chosen. Exits are noticed. Chairs, distances, and timing all register in the background.

What’s strange is how normal this feels now. Not easy, not comfortable — but familiar. I don’t narrate it. I don’t explain it. I simply live inside it, adjusting without making a point of it.

This page doesn’t frame that as progress or loss. It doesn’t ask whether this is good or bad. It just names the moment where living stops being temporary accommodation and becomes the way things are.