the body remembers everything

the body is far less interested in denial than the mind is.

you can convince yourself you are fine for years.
your body will quietly keep score anyway.

stress settles somewhere.
grief settles somewhere.
fear settles somewhere.

in the jaw.
the shoulders.
the stomach.
the chest.
the nervous system.
the places women are taught to hold tension while continuing to smile politely through dinner.

i think women become experts at disconnecting from their bodies early.

ignore your hunger.
ignore your exhaustion.
ignore your intuition.
ignore the panic attack.
ignore the pain.
ignore the resentment.
ignore the bleeding.
ignore the burnout.
ignore the fact that your body has been whispering “please” for years.

we learn to override ourselves in the name of productivity, beauty, motherhood, partnership, ambition, survival.

and eventually the body stops whispering.

eventually it interrupts.

i do not think it is accidental how many women become physically ill after years of emotional self abandonment.

the body remembers what the mind minimizes.

it remembers the relationship where you never fully relaxed.
the years spent trying to earn love through usefulness.
the constant hypervigilance.
the grief you swallowed because everyone else needed you stable.
the anger you translated into politeness.
the fear you disguised as control.
the exhaustion you renamed “being strong.”

sometimes i wonder how many women are walking around in bodies begging for gentleness while their lives demand performance instead.

and maybe that is why illness feels so psychologically disorienting.

because suddenly the body you have spent years negotiating with becomes impossible to ignore.

there is no productivity hack for mortality.
no perfectly color coded calendar that protects you from being human.
no amount of competence that exempts you from fragility.

your body will eventually tell the truth your life has been trying to outrun.

mine is.

and i am trying very hard to listen this time.

because i no longer want a life where my body has to scream in order for me to finally offer myself care.

i want to become the kind of woman who responds to whispers too.