This Isn’t What I Thought 54 Would Look Like
Welp, I'm out of the major flare. Amazing what speaking kindly to and about yourself can do — and what it means to feel genuinely heard. So many of you wrote back to share your own stories, your own flare ups, your own bodies that don't always cooperate. Thank you for that. Relating to each other is one of the most quietly powerful things we can do. It reminds us we're not alone or broken... we're just human.
The funny thing is, this isn't what I thought 54 would look like.
The first forty-ish years were pretty smooth, body-wise. I moved through the world without thinking too much about what was happening under the hood. Then the next decade arrived and it humbled me. Four surgeries. Autoimmune diagnosis. A gut that stages protests. A wrist with opinions.
I thought by now I'd have more figured out. I also thought this season of life would be... easier. Softer, maybe. Definitely less work. Caring for this suitcase is a full-time job!
Here's what's actually true: I had cancer. That sentence still feels surreal to write. I don't feel like I had "real" cancer — I didn't go through treatment, just a hysterectomy (and that's not a request, Universe) — but it happened, and it changed things. Surgical menopause was no joke. It has reshaped my body in ways I didn't fully anticipate and couldn't have prepared for. And while I've genuinely never felt shame about cellulite, I'd be lying if I said I don't sometimes look in the mirror and feel a small grief for the body I used to live in without thinking about it.
The wellness industry sells us a story about keeping the same body forever if we just try hard enough. Clean eating, consistent movement, this pill, that potion — and you'll basically stay the same. Without realizing it, I believed it, at least a little. I think many of us did.
But really, they benefit from our shame. The goal is for us to feel bad so they can profit. And I'm done with that story.
This body — this one, the one I actually have right now, with the flare ups and the menopause and the wrist brace and the modified workouts — this
is the one worth knowing. Worth caring for, worth writing about on a Tuesday.
Several of you mentioned being struck by my self-compassion. I've been sitting with that.
Here's what I think is actually true: this body has been teaching me since I was a child. It has always been exquisitely sensitive — to stress, to food, to the emotional weather of a room. And for a long time I treated that sensitivity like a flaw to manage. But the body keeps score, and mine in particular does not mess around. When I override what it's telling me, it will simply get louder. The message comes through my gut or an autoimmune flare that puts me horizontal for two days. The delivery method changes. The message is always the same: you stopped listening, so I'm going to get your attention.
After enough rounds of that, you learn. The self-compassion isn't something I was born with. It was earned, slowly, through every flare up I had to rest through. The body is always communicating, always teaching. Eventually, you realize you're on the same team.
What's a story you were sold about your body?
And what's the truer one you're living now?
With love and eucalyptus flowers,
— Michelle
Michelle Marlahan has been teaching yoga since 2001 and is the founder of It's All Yoga. She teaches from her home in West Sacramento, alongside her cat Magic and her dog Maple.