The Geography of Pain and the Mathematics of Less
I live in a country whose borders no one else can see.
Its language is fatigue. A fatigue so deep that no translation exists in the dictionary of the healthy. Its currency is energy—energy that others spend like water while I count each drop like a miser. Its weather is pain. Pain that arrives like unexpected rain and leaves like it never happened.
I didn’t choose to live here. The visa was stamped on my passport without asking. No one gave me a guidebook. No one warned me about the loneliness.
It’s Monday morning. Outside my window, the world is waking up. People are making tea, opening their laptops, planning their day. The sound of productivity fills the air like birdsong. I’m still in bed. Not because I’m lazy. But because the distance between my body and the day ahead feels like crossing an ocean.
“How are you feeling?”
Simple question. Impossible answer.
The truth is—my body feels like it’s carrying stones. Standing up requires a meeting with my bones, a negotiation with gravity. My mind writes checks that my body cannot cash. But I’ve learned that honesty makes people uncomfortable. So I smile and say, “Better, thanks.” Or “Taking it day by day.” Or “You know how it is.”
But they don’t know. How could they? They live in a different country altogether.
They live where bodies cooperate. Where sleep brings energy. Where pain means something specific—a headache from lack of sleep, a backache from poor posture—things that can be fixed, things that go away. They visit illness like tourists. I’m a permanent resident.
The hardest part? I’m exiled from my former self. I remember him clearly. The man who made plans for next month, next year. The man who said yes without checking his energy bank. The man who woke up feeling good and thought nothing of it.
That man seems like fiction now. A character I played in another lifetime.
The world speaks a language I no longer understand fluently. It speaks of targets, deadlines, achievements, more and more and more. But chronic illness has taught me a different mathematics. The mathematics of less. Less energy. Fewer plans. Smaller circles.
When the world says run faster, my body says walk slower. When the world says do more, I’m learning the art of doing less.
Even loneliness here is different. It’s not just about being alone. It’s about being alone in time. Others plan five years ahead. I negotiate with my body for tomorrow. Others invest in dreams. I spend everything just to survive today.
I’ve tried support groups. Rooms full of people with chronic conditions. We’re supposed to understand each other. And we do, partly. But my exhaustion speaks a different dialect than their joint pain. Their migraines can’t fully translate my brain fog. We’re neighbors in the country of illness, but strangers in our specific sufferings.
The healthy people mean well. They really do. They bring advice like gifts. “Have you tried exercise?” “Think positive!” “My cousin’s friend tried this herb…” “Meditation works wonders!”
They’re speaking from their country—where problems are temporary, where effort brings results, where trying hard enough solves everything. They cannot imagine a place where trying harder makes things worse. Where rest isn’t laziness but survival. Where acceptance isn’t defeat but wisdom.
But here’s what I’ve discovered in this exile.
Chronic illness teaches things that health never can. When you have limited energy, every moment becomes precious. When pain is your companion, small joys shine brighter. A good morning feels like a festival. A day without much pain feels like winning a lottery.
I’ve learned to read my body like a farmer reads the sky. I plant small seeds of activity that might survive my unpredictable seasons. I’ve found friends among others who understand—people who measure success not in achievements but in endurance. Not in conquering but in adapting.
Some days are victories simply because I survived them. I answered three emails while my joints screamed. I smiled at my daughter while exhaustion pulled at my edges like a child tugging at clothes. I remained present in a body that makes presence feel like climbing a mountain.
Tonight, as the productive world sleeps peacefully, preparing for tomorrow’s grand plans, I lie here taking inventory. I count not what I achieved but what I endured. Not what I conquered but what I adapted to.
And I’ve learned something the healthy world may never know: being alive is enough. Surviving is success. Some countries can only be understood by those who live there.
In this invisible country, population millions, I am finally home.
Not the home I chose. But home nonetheless.
Here, in this place where others cannot see, I’ve built a small life. It’s not the life I dreamed of. It’s smaller, slower, quieter. But it’s mine. And in its own way, it’s enough.
The alarm won’t ring tomorrow at 6 AM. Because I’ve learned that my body sets its own time. The plans won’t stretch beyond today. Because tomorrow speaks a language I don’t yet know.
But tonight, right now, I’m here. Still here. Still breathing. Still finding small reasons to smile.
And in this invisible country, that counts as a good day.
