I set out on my run this morning with a feeling of self-loathing, acutely aware of the 10lb that has crept onto my body in the last 2 years. Irritated and anxious to get back to the weight I feel best at, I laced up my shoes and started down the street. The music was thumping in my earbuds and set the tone for a pretty good run. Or run/walk, that is. I am out of shape. Within a few minutes, I started thinking about how I got to this place, stuck in a body that frustrates me.

So I started thinking about what I’ve been through in the past 2 years, or so. In addition to the stressors I have felt for years as a trauma surgeon, I began to consider what else has been layered on, for me and so many others. Throughout the last few years, we have all had to grapple with the changes in our work and everyday lives due to the pandemic; we witnessed (more) Black men die at the hands of white men; we watched a violent insurrection on our Capitol and its attendant threat to our Democracy; we saw women’s access to reproductive healthcare stripped in many states and sense clear and present threats to human rights for our LGBTQ+ friends and family; we mourned the loss of children in school shootings and have been left stunned by the failure of our lawmakers to enact change even in the face of senseless death; we are frustrated by the spread of misinformation and hatred on social media over masks, vaccines, the election, and Critical Race Theory; and we are witnessing hints of Christian nationalism and fascism on the right, a threat to us all. These are stressful and scary times by any account. So with that as the starting point, I started to think about what was unique to me in my corner of the world.

In early 2020, as COVID was bearing down on our hospitals, before vaccines and while we were reusing our precious N95 masks, my husband and I made the hard decision for me to leave our home and stay in an AirBNB to protect him and our children. Early on, we were hearing about middle-aged men (my husband’s demographic) becoming quite ill with COVID. We couldn’t risk it. So I spent weeks alone in a quiet apartment, soothing myself with dinner-for-one of chips and salsa and dark chocolate.

Just a few months prior to COVID’s scourge, I had been named as the inaugural Chief Wellness Officer for my institution at the time. This role had no history, vague expectations, unclear deliverables, and a paucity of support. That role was gauzy and lonely, one in which I felt immense pressure to support our physicians during such a stressful and scary time, and yet, I had not the experience, infrastructure, clarity, or backing to do it. The days and nights spent confused, upset, anxious, and in tears over this role are too numerous to count. Handfuls of salted nuts and nibbles of the donated food at work became mindless soothing techniques.

By the Spring of 2021, I could sense the burnout smoldering. Work was stressful because of COVID, and because…it’s stressful work at baseline. Gun violence was surging and our trauma service was exploding with patients. We were all exhausted and consistently working 65-100 hours/week. Breaks were few and far between. Fatigue landed me in bed instead of the gym on many days.

A dear friend encouraged me to see a therapist. I was anxious and probably a little depressed. My marriage was suffering as a result. I felt distant and irritable. All. The. Time. My therapist worked through these issues with me and gave me the courage to use words like “shame” and “trauma” to describe some of my feelings. And only then did I realize there were more facets, more drivers, to those feelings than I realized.

In the summer of 2021, as COVID was surging in Indiana, I watched helplessly as our church at the time encouraged throngs of maskless worshippers to flood into in-person services. I reached out and begged them to consider the implications of this, the optics that pour salt into the open moral injury wounds of battered healthcare workers, but to no avail. The church wouldn’t encourage masks. I felt unsafe in the place I was supposed to consider my spiritual shelter. And through all of those conversations, a deeper and darker truth was revealed: the grip of male dominance in this and so many other churches, the codified exclusion of women in leadership, and the expected “submission” to the men in leadership. With a broken heart, we left the church altogether, and suddenly, what had been a part of my life since I was born, looked very different. While Jesus and his singular message of love and forgiveness guide my heart to this day, the constant presence of the church and all of its rituals vanished. Communion wine was gone, but delicious French or Italian varieties became special treats more often, at the cost of a few hundred calories for a few glasses of joy.

Around the same time, I abruptly quit the job that had become more stressful than I was willing to tolerate and began to search for a new one. I leaned on my trusted friends during this time and they carried me through this process with the most incredible support, advice, encouragement, and offers to join their faculty. It was a difficult choice because I knew all of my options were terrific, but after much consideration, I accepted the job that I have today. This brought a move 600 miles from my parents and brother, and the decision to move my high school and middle school-aged sons away from their stability and friends. Selling a home in a red-hot market and trying to find a new one isn’t exactly easy on a marriage either. We found ourselves in a place with each other that we weren’t proud of.

The summer of 2022 brought a move, a new job, a stint in an AirBNB, and a lot of travel. Read: let’s eat out. Again. Loss of routine, no gym access, and living in an unfamiliar area meant exercise was erratic or absent. And let’s be honest…as a woman of my age, my peri-menopausal hormones are having their way with my metabolism and energy level. So there’s that, too.

And now here we are. Up 10 pounds, out of shape, and out of my old exercise routines. Frustrated…but reflective. And honestly, proud of these 10 pounds. Because I earned them. I fought for them. And they are the battle wounds of a tough two years. A few months in my own therapy were life-changing, and a few sessions with a marriage counselor reset us on a better course, and we will enter our 25th year of marriage, perhaps the strongest we have ever been. I am less anxious and more content. We are settled into our new home and I am settling into this new job, which I would have never come to had I not experienced what I did in my last one. I am not defined by a number on a scale, my worthiness is not bound to the size of my jeans. My body bears the scars of what it took to get me here. All of the lessons I have learned. And proves to me I can, and do, have the self-determination to take care of this body, to make time for it, to honor it. And to love it as it is.

We have all been through more in the last few years than any of us signed up for. For some, there has been indescribable loss, massive upheaval, or terrifying threats. We don’t have to compare or rank-order our stressors. It’s not a competition. Your worst day is your worst day, and mine is mine. But for both of us, our bodies keep a record and remind us of our journey. I hope we can honor the path we see behind us, and trust our bodies to carry us forward. Because my journey is more important than the world would have me believe about my looks and I want to respect the emotional and mental lessons that this body will keep teaching me.

Disclaimer: My viewpoints are not necessarily reflective of my employer, or any local, regional or national organization that I belong to. As a matter of fact, I pretty much just speak for myself. Please keep that in mind.