One of the things I’ve come to notice about caring for my health over the course of my life is that sometime . . . I just get tired of being the good girl. The one who follows the rules. The one who drinks the sparkling water and skips the wine. Who meditates in the morning, journals regularly, and tries not to let the small things get under her skin.

It’s exhausting.

Sometimes being me is more than I can do.

Sometimes I want to push the limits, break the rules, forget the illness. Sometimes I want to eat the pasta, order the dessert, stay up late, and forget my body requires special care.

Other times, what I want seems just out of reach. Sometimes I want to just walk to the ball field without having to step three or four times for a sip of water and extra breath.  In short, I run out of energy. Out of patience.When these moments come and I want to give up — and believe me they do —  I feel the guilt rise quickly. That heavy, familiar weight of shame.

“What are you doing?”

“Why would you slip up now?”

I question what’s happening in my life that would make me forget and mess up the good health I’ve tried to maintain. I start to question myself, my strength, even my ability to remain strong. I feel the palpitations and wonder if I’ve made things worse.

I hear myself say, “yes, you have” and feel even worse.

But here’s what I’ve learned: shame is not helping. Shame is not the person I want to be. That momentary rebellion does not erase decades of care. That a setback is not the same as failure.

I’ve learned not to let being great be the enemy of being good.

Living with heart disease or any form of chronic illness is not a punch list you can refer to whenever it suits you. There will be days when nothing stops me from drinking too much wine, and that’s because I’m on a journey called life that is uniquely mine for as long as I live. And like any journey, some days I have what it takes to make choices aligned with protecting my heart and some days I do not. Period.

So for now, I know I did the best I could and that’s all I ask of myself on any day.

originally pubished on MEDIUM