Today I felt flat. Heavy. Tender in that quiet way that doesn’t ask for attention but asks to be witnessed.

I’m two days away from my bleed. My body feels slow, my motivation thin, my emotions close to the surface. I watched part of the ‘BALANCE: A Perimenopause Journey’ documentary about perimenopause and HRT, hoping for clarity, and instead I felt a familiar ache rise. The kind that asks impossible questions.

What if I’d started earlier? What if I’d known sooner? What if I could feel more like me by now?

And then it landed. Softly. Honestly. I don’t know what “normal” feels like. For more than two decades, my body hasn’t lived in neutrality. It’s lived in responsibility. In vigilance. In survival. In being the one who holds everything together. I became a single mother in my mid-20s, and from that moment on, my nervous system learned one thing very well: stay alert, stay capable, don’t collapse.

There was no spaciousness to check in with myself. No permission to rest into who I was becoming. My baseline wasn’t calm or regulated; it was functional. I didn’t have the luxury of tuning into subtle shifts because I was busy getting through the day.

So now, two months into HRT, when I ask myself whether it’s working, I realise something important. There is no old version of me to return to. I’m not restoring anything. I’m creating something new.

That’s why this feels so confusing at times. That’s why progress feels invisible. My body isn’t remembering how to be steady; it’s learning for the first time what safety feels like without hypervigilance attached. And learning takes energy.

There are days when rest feels productive, even though nothing tangible gets done. Days when my body asks me to slow down so deeply that I wonder if I’m doing life “wrong”. Days when I’ve done everything essential, and yet I still feel like I’m not doing enough.

This month has felt long. Winter always does this to me. I love its quiet, but it carries a weight too. Add chronic hip and leg pain into the mix, and my world becomes smaller. I can’t move freely. Every walk has consequences. Every outing is followed by painkillers and recovery. It’s demotivating in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.

And then there’s the surgery sitting in the background of everything, like a quiet drumbeat I can hear even when I’m not thinking about it. We’ve decided to go ahead, and even without a confirmed date yet, my whole system knows it’s coming. I’m planning and preparing in the most practical, loving way I can: simplifying our home so it’s easy to move through, making things easier for Khushi to manage, thinking about meals, laundry, recovery comforts, what I’ll need within reach, how I’ll rest, and how I’ll rebuild. It’s strange how life can feel both tender and strategic at the same time. This isn’t fear, it’s devotion. It’s me taking myself seriously. It’s me building a little bridge between who I am now and the woman I’ll be on the other side of recovery. Even the slow days are part of the preparation, especially on the slow days.

I also notice how inward I’ve become. How events, crowds, and networking spaces feel draining rather than nourishing. Not because I’ve become antisocial, but because my system no longer wants to perform. Being “on” costs more than I’m willing to pay right now. This isn’t avoidance. It’s discernment.

I’m choosing depth over exposure. Intimacy over noise. One-on-one resonance over rooms full of strangers. My energy is being conserved, not withdrawn. I’m protecting it for what truly matters.

This “meh” feeling isn’t emptiness. It’s integration. It’s the quiet space after big inner shifts, after clarity arrives, after shedding layers that no longer belong. The nervous system doesn’t leap straight into joy. Sometimes it passes through neutrality first. A pause. A stillness. A reset.

I’m not behind. I’m not failing. I’m not doing this wrong. My body is recalibrating. My nervous system is learning safety. My hormones are finding their rhythm. And I am learning how to live without forcing myself through discomfort just to prove I can.

Tonight, I’m not looking for answers. I’m letting the questions exist without urgency. I’m allowing myself to be human in a body that has worked incredibly hard for a very long time. There may be no “normal” to return to. But there is a new way of being quietly forming.

And for the first time, I’m not rushing it.

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