Iris

I had the hip replacement 2/11/26 and everything went fantastic. I highly recommend it to anyone over the age of 35 with hip issues. I can walk normal so that is solved. Now I am left with the aftermath of building myself back up to where I was physically. I am struggling to accept that my body is not the same and it may never be. My clothes fit different now.

I’m going to have to go shopping for clothes eventually. I honestly do not know where to shop at my age.

When you don’t know what to wear and your clothes don’t fit anymore-you feel stuck and you avoid going out. When you avoid going out, you get in a rut. I would like to get out of this rut and get unstuck. I can’t hide at home forever.

Why would I really want to go out though? There are so many fantastic bingeable-shows on, so many good books to read and so many podcasts to choose from!

It’s all enjoyable… in the moment. However, too much alone time, hometime and screentime, leaves me feeling “blah”. Social skills get rusty. It’s like I lost my spirit. My spirit only comes from having fun & spending time with other human beings, like friends and family.

What work am I avoiding? I have no clue. I’m constantly doing “stuff” aka some type of work: housework, yard work, work at my job, working out, & grocery shopping/cooking. What more could we be doing?

Unfortunately, these are the messages that keep presenting themselves in the back of my mind:

What you resist will persist…

What you hate is what you need…

These statements made in the back of my mind are getting annoying.

After almost year of these internal questions-I decided to do something about it. I embraced the suck, finally, and answered them.

What do I resist that keeps persisting? No idea.

I keep assigning myself tasks to re-direct myself. The to-do list is forever long when you own a home.. and you are easily distracted by the stuff you find while organizing.

When I finish a task lately, instead of feeling accomplished, I still feel that empty, clueless feeling. It seems like I am going about my life on autopilot.

Next question: Why do I feel lost?

Because I’m going to be 52 and suddenly I feel like I do not know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know how to dress for my age & I don’t know where to shop for clothes.

I don’t know how to put on make-up for “mature skin”. I see all these relentless ads on instagram telling me what I need, what supplements to buy, and I have even gotten sucked into purchasing items.

Then, of course, they don’t work.

What you hate is what you need….Ok, so…What do I need?

What you hate to do is what you need….

What do I hate?

I couldn’t think of anything. I do stuff I hate all the time: dishes, meal prep, cleaning toilets, laundry, pull weeds.

What do I need? Alcohol, going out with friends, shopping, sugar, a spa day?

Why would anyone want to do something they hate?

I guess you find out what you hate when you figure out what you love.

So What do I love to do that I’m not already doing? A road trip with the windows rolled down and the music blasting.

If that’s what I love, so what I hate is to go on a road trip with the windows rolled up and no music?

Yes I would hate that and I absolutely refuse. That’s too long of a commitment to do something I hate. This has to be a shorter time period – like an hour or two max.

I LOVE YOGA.

Then I remembered. I love all yoga… that is, except one… vinyasa.

I despise vinyasa.

I’m not sure why, but I avoid vinyasa class. I DREAD IT. While I am in class, I’m counting down the minutes until we are done.

I suppose I’ll start with this 60-minute agonizing activity I hate.

Vinyasa requires focus & balance. Stillness. My ADHD goes on blast. My mind is making lists during the class and thinking of other things while I’m trapped on that mat…

During Vinyasa, I fumble around and I feel stupid. I feel old. I feel inadequate. I FEEL…. I don’t want to feel.

Brain: “you just need to practice dipshit.”

So this week I did what I hated and completed three vinyasa classes.

After my second class, I was proud of myself. I took a nap after, then I experienced a lost, stuck, empty, clueless feeling.

Yoga poses that include a lot of twists, release cortisol & cause lymphatic drainage. Vinyasa’s emotional release combines fluid, breath-linked yoga movements with somatic techniques to help your body process and let go of stored physical and emotional tension. Because trauma and daily stress are often stored in the body’s fascia, muscles, and nervous system, this practice gently coaxes the body to release pent-up feelings like anxiety or stress.

•Hip Openers (e.g., Pigeon Pose, Lizard Pose): The hips are heavily associated with holding onto stress and unprocessed emotions.

•Heart Openers (e.g., Camel, Sphinx, Supported Fish): These poses stretch the chest and shoulders, countering the physical posture of anxiety and helping to release feelings of vulnerability.

•Forward Folds & Twists: These encourage internal focus, grounding, and gentle compression of the abdomen (where anxiety is often physically felt)

I didn’t want to feel like this so I started online shopping. I surrendered & bought some clothes, I ordered a bunch of different options and sizes from Amazon. Ok doing what I hate got me to take action on a problem I’ve been avoiding. That must be IT!

I tried on the clothes and felt comfortable. I went out with friends and went out to dinner three times in one weekend. I’m back!

Unfortunately, the feeling still lingered. It seemed deeper than fashion in my 50’s, supplements or mature make- up. I went out and spent time with people l love. It must be something my soul needs. But what is IT???

I went to vinyasa again on a Saturday. I was thinking about the social outing I had to attend in the afternoon. While I was laying on my mat after all the dreadful hip openers and twists, IT appeared.

Thoughts: I don’t want to talk to anyone, I don’t feel like getting ready, I don’t feel like staying home but I don’t want to go out either. What is wrong with me?

An acoustic song in a women’s voice started playing. It was a slower cover of a song I heard a million times, but the lyrics meant nothing to me or went right over my head.

Today I HEARD the song differently …

🎵🎶🎼 “And I’d give up forever to touch you
‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to Heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t wanna go home right now“

“And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
And sooner or later, it’s over
I just don’t wanna miss you tonight.“🎼🎵🎶

Thoughts continued: I don’t want go anywhere

Song: 🎶And I don’t want the world to see me.” 🎵

Thoughts: No one would get what I’m feeling.

Song: 🎼 “Cause I don’t think that they’d understand.”

Thoughts: what’s wrong with me?

Song: 🎼When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am…

Then IT arrived…. what I have been avoiding feeling: I don’t know what to do with my life without my mom. …

Who am I without her? What is my purpose without her?

It’s not that I forgot she died. I’ve been just going through the motions of life, day by day. I’ve been in shock I guess. She passed away during my hip surgery recovery and things became blurred. Too much life to process at once.

It was three months without her on Monday 6/29/2026.

While my brain was occupied with this song & revelation… tears were rolling down my face. I didn’t even realize I was crying, as if I was two separate entities.

🎶🎵🎼And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies

When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive

The floodgates from my soul opened…the detached, autopilot me connected to the lost, empty, grieving me…the ugly sobs began. Two people from yoga gave me a hug. I needed that.

My whole adult life was spent worrying about my mom, helping my mom, caring for her, spending time with her, experiencing joy & life with her, fighting with her, sharing her grandkids wth her, laughing with her & making her care about herself… now at the three month mark… I don’t know what to do with the next half of my life. Who am I without being her daughter?

So this hidden feeling, IT, is grief.

So… I just have to sit with this. Go through all the firsts. First Mother’s Day, first birthday, first holidays without her. Feeling IT is the only way through.

We all have to go through this phase…I mean no one here is getting out alive. We know this, yet when people leave this world, we are still shocked.

Apparently, this is why we must do what we hate, in order to get to what we need. The more we resist, the more it will persist. Maybe I’m supposed to stay home for awhile and feel it. Maybe I should stop trying to be who I was before because that woman no longer exists.

IT is not how I expected IT to present itself. Grief isn’t just about losing the person you loved, it’s about losing who YOU were before you lost that person. Losing that version of YOU before the loss.

The “magic I’ve been looking for” is my mom. The work that I’ve been avoiding is stillness & emotional work.

The world looks and feels different now without my mom. I miss the world where she is still in it. I miss the me with her. I miss my mom and my siblings together. This is this is why I’ve been feeling so lost.