Did the World Stop Spinning and Fall Apart? Nope!

I didn’t put out a blog post on Thursday this week.

And you know what?

The world kept spinning.

I know. Shocking.

I’ve had a migraine pretty much all week, and I just couldn’t focus enough to sit down and write a post. I tried. Of course I tried. Because apparently accepting that I need to rest is still not my first instinct. But every time I sat down and stared at my computer, my brain basically said, Yeah, we’re not doing this today.

In the past, missing a blog post would have completely ruined everything as far as I was concerned. Welcome to my ADHD world, where missing one completely self-imposed deadline can somehow turn into, Well, I guess everything is falling apart now.

There would have been guilt. Frustration. Probably some overthinking. Okay, definitely some overthinking.

I would have convinced myself that I was getting behind. That I needed to make up for it. That I was failing at this whole blogging thing because I said I was going to post on Thursday and Thursday came and went without a new post.

But this time?

I was completely at peace with it.

I would call that growth.

Actually, for me, that’s huge.

I realized that I had two choices. I could force myself to sit in front of my computer while my head was pounding and my brain wasn’t functioning, just so I could say I published something on Thursday. Or I could give myself some grace, take a few days off, get some rest, and come back when I could actually think clearly.

Or, you know, as clearly as it gets for me.

I chose the second one.

As I’ve said before, I’m not your typical blogger. I don’t have a perfectly curated schedule with content pillars and topics planned out three months in advance. There isn’t a color-coded spreadsheet telling me what inspirational life lesson I’m supposed to have next Thursday.

Maybe there should be.

But there isn’t.

I write about whatever happens to be taking up space in my mind at the time.

That’s scary when you think about it.

Sometimes something happens in my life and I can’t stop thinking about it. Sometimes I have a random thought while driving, getting ready, or lying in bed when I’m supposed to be sleeping. Sometimes an idea sits in my head for weeks before I figure out what I’m trying to say.

And sometimes I miss Thursday.

I’m learning that all of those things are okay.

I would much rather take a few days off and come back with something meaningful to say than throw together something half-assed just so I can check a box that says, Yep, posted on Thursday.

If you know me, you know doing something half-assed is one of my biggest pet peeves.

If you’re going to do something, do it.

My family knows this all too well. I don’t really do anything small. When I decide I’m doing something, I’m usually all in. Sometimes ridiculously all in.

It can be a great quality.

It can also be exhausting.

Because somewhere along the way, “all in” can quietly turn into believing that you always have to keep going. That changing your plans means you failed. That resting means you’re being lazy. That if you said you were going to do something, you better do it no matter what.

I’m starting to understand that those things aren’t the same.

Sometimes changing the plan is the smartest thing you can do.

Life doesn’t always go according to plan. Things don’t always happen the way we want them to, how we want them to, or when we want them to.

And I don’t particularly like that.

I like plans.

I like knowing what’s happening, although I am getting better at going with the flow.

I like lists.

I really like lists.

There’s something very satisfying about having everything written down and checking those little boxes one by one. It makes me feel like I have my shit together, even when we all know that’s questionable.

But life doesn’t care about my list.

Life has its own timing.

There’s a bigger picture happening behind the scenes that we can’t always see. Something that feels like an inconvenience today might make perfect sense later. A delay might redirect us somewhere we never expected to go. Something we desperately want right now might not be right for us yet.

That can be incredibly difficult to understand while you’re in the middle of it.

We want answers.

We want things fixed.

We want to know why.

And preferably, we’d like to know right now.

We’ve become so accustomed to getting what we want when we want it that waiting can feel almost unbearable. But some things can’t be rushed. Sometimes all we can do is trust the process and the timing.

And yes, I know how annoyingly simple that sounds.

It’s much easier to say when everything is going well.

It’s harder when you’re disappointed, frustrated, hurting, or lying in a dark room with an ice-cold migraine cap on your head wondering when you’re going to feel like yourself again.

Those are the moments when we need to give ourselves some grace.

We’re human too.

I think sometimes we forget that.

We’ll tell a friend to rest when she’s exhausted, then turn around and criticize ourselves for needing the exact same thing.

We’ll tell someone we love, “Don’t worry about it. Take care of yourself.”

But when it comes to us?

Nope.

We should be able to handle it.

We should push through.

We should keep going.

Why?

Why are we so willing to extend kindness, patience, and understanding to everyone around us but make ourselves earn it?

Our feelings matter. Our health matters. Our well-being matters just as much as the next person’s.

We need to learn to care for ourselves the way we would care for a friend, a family member, or anyone else we love.

And I’m still learning this one.

As someone with decades of experience dealing with debilitating migraines, I’ve learned the hard way that eventually you have to listen to your body.

But…

I’m stubborn.

I often try to push through because I don’t want to let anyone down, including myself.

I don’t want to change my plans.

I don’t want to cancel something I was looking forward to.

I don’t want to lose an entire day sleeping in a dark room with an ice-cold migraine cap pulled over my head.

I don’t want to live on oyster crackers because I’m too nauseous to even think about eating anything else.

And I definitely don’t enjoy having physical symptoms severe enough that someone looking at me might wonder if I’m having a stroke.

I want to get up and keep going.

But migraines don’t particularly care what I want.

The more I fight them, the more they seem to win.

At some point, my body is going to force me to stop whether I willingly agree to it or not. So maybe the real growth is learning to stop before I’m forced to.

To rest without feeling guilty about it.

To change the plan without feeling like I’ve failed.

To leave something unchecked on the list and understand that it will still be there tomorrow.

That’s the part I’m working on.

And during those moments of frustration, I also try to remind myself how fortunate I am that this is temporary.

Eventually the migraine will break.

Eventually I’ll get out of the dark room.

Eventually oyster crackers will stop being an entire food group.

Eventually I’ll open my laptop again and the words will come.

Not everyone dealing with health issues gets to say that. Not everyone gets to know that the bad day, or the bad week, will pass.

That perspective matters.

It doesn’t mean I have to pretend a migraine doesn’t suck. Knowing that other people are dealing with much worse doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be frustrated by what I’m going through. Gratitude and frustration can exist in the same space.

I can hate what I’m going through and still recognize what I have to be thankful for.

Maybe giving yourself grace is partly about allowing two things to be true at once.

You can be disappointed and still be proud of yourself.

You can be productive and still need rest.

You can be strong and still have days when you can’t do everything.

You can have goals and still change the timeline.

You can be grateful and still admit something is hard.

And you can miss Thursday without deciding you’ve somehow ruined everything.

That last one might sound small, but for me, it isn’t.

Because the old version of me would have obsessed over the missed post.

The version of me sitting here now understands something she didn’t always understand:

The deadline can move.

My health matters more.

My peace matters more.

And putting something into the world that actually means something to me matters more than publishing just for the sake of saying I published.

So no, there wasn’t a blog post on Thursday.

Instead, I rested.

I listened to my body.

I let the plan change.

And when I finally felt well enough to sit down and write again, I had something much more important to say anyway.

Give yourself some grace.

When the plan changes.

When you don’t get everything done.

When your body tells you it needs a break.

When life decides it has absolutely no interest in following that beautiful little schedule you created.

Rest when you need to rest.

Change the plan when you need to change the plan.

And stop expecting yourself to handle things in ways you would never expect from someone you love.

Whatever it is will still be there tomorrow.

And if it isn’t?

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be.

As for me, I missed Thursday.

And I’m okay with that.

I think I’ll call that growth.