Idols of March

@diagnosis_cirrhosis ✨🌸 This March felt different than others 💭✨ Not in a “forever changed” kind of way… just in a “something shifted” kind of way 🌊💛 It’s not just a month… it’s a marker 📍 A checkpoint. A quiet “look how far you’ve come” moment 💭 It’s a new phase in my story—one that keeps surprising me every time the calendar turns over 📖💫 This March was about finding my stride again 👣✨ Finding confidence in a version of myself I didn’t expect—but am learning to love anyway 💛🪞 It was going live 🎥📱 and realizing how powerful real, unfiltered conversations can be… Not just talking—but connecting 🤝 Listening 👂 Feeling seen and seeing others too 🫶✨ My mind grew 🧠📈 My heart grew 💖🌱 It was familiar tests 🧪📊 New doctors 👩‍⚕️👨‍⚕️ Check-ins with the future… including time at the transplant center 🏥⏳ New recipes 🍽️✨ Old restrictions 🧂🚫 But finding comfort in routine 🥗💚 Turning limitations into creativity… and constraints into something that feels like care, not control 🫶 Moments of fear 😔 Moments of strength 💪 And a lot of in between 🌊 But through all of it… I showed up 🙋‍♀️ And that counts for everything 💯✨ I’m not the same person I was last March—and that’s the point 🌱💫 Grateful for another March 🙏🌸 Living with cirrhosis 🧬 liver disease 🩺 and navigating chronic illness isn’t linear… but growth is still happening every single day 📈💚 Whether it’s autoimmune hepatitis 🛡️🔥 fatty liver (MASLD/NAFLD) 🍩 MASH/NASH 🧪 alcohol-related liver disease 🚫🍷 hepatitis B 🦠 hepatitis C 🦠 or any other cause… this journey changes you—but it doesn’t end you 💫 #healing #adayinmylife #recap #liverhealth #autoimmunewarrior ♬ original sound - diagnosis cirrhosis

March did not feel like a month this time.

It felt like a changing of the guard.

Not loud.
Not cinematic.
Not a clean before and after.

Just a quiet shift in authority.

The things that had been standing watch inside me for so long — fear, vigilance, control, the constant need to prepare for every possible outcome — were still there.

But they were not ruling the whole room anymore.

That was the difference.

That was the checkpoint.

Not that everything changed.
Not that I suddenly became fearless.
Not that cirrhosis stopped being cirrhosis.

But something shifted.

The original Ides of March is remembered as a turning point. A ruler losing power. A transfer of control. A moment when the world does not immediately look different, but the order underneath it has changed.

And maybe that is why Idols of March feels more honest to me.

Because this March was not just about time passing.

It was about realizing how many things I had accidentally made into idols.

The old version of myself.
The untouched version.
The person I kept imagining I was supposed to get back to.

Certainty.
Control.
The fantasy of a clean explanation.
The idea that if I learned enough, planned enough, watched closely enough, I could keep uncertainty from entering the room.

Even being understood became its own kind of idol.

Wanting people to get it.
Wanting them to say the right thing.
Wanting my life to make sense to someone who was not living inside my body.

And then March came, not as an answer, but as evidence.
Evidence that I was not the same person I was last March.
Evidence that the guard I had kept up for so long was beginning to come down.

Not disappear.
Come down.
There is a difference.

The guard was not wrong.
It protected me when everything felt new.
It helped me learn the language.
It helped me ask the questions.
It helped me survive the shock of becoming someone with labs, specialists, restrictions, check-ins, future conversations, and medical weather built into the calendar.

But at some point, protection can start to feel like a locked door.

And this March, I could feel the door opening.

A little.

I went live.
I had real conversations.
Not polished ones. Not easy ones. Real ones.

I listened.
I felt seen.
I saw other people more clearly too.

My mind grew. My heart grew.

Not in a soft-focus, inspirational way.

In a practical way.
In a human way.
In the way you grow when you stop confusing being guarded with being safe.

This month was still familiar tests.
New doctors.
Check-ins with the future.
Time at the transplant center.
Old restrictions.
New recipes.
Moments of fear.
Moments of strength.
A lot of in between.

It was still the life I did not choose.

But I was different inside it.

That is what I kept coming back to.

Calling me “scared” before my first live is like calling Julius Caesar “just some guy with a busy March.”

There were over 500 people watching at once, and I looked exactly like someone who had accidentally opened the Senate doors.

But people were there. Strangers, and friends. Friends that were strangers only one month earlier. A lot can happen in one month…

The restrictions did not vanish.
But they started feeling less like punishment and more like care.

The appointments did not become easy.
But they became part of a map I could read.

The conversations did not solve everything.
But they reminded me that connection is not performance.

And the old self — the one I had been carrying around like a relic, like proof of who I was supposed to be — started losing some of her power.

I do not mean I stopped loving her.

I think I finally stopped worshipping her.

That may be the real idol of March: The before self.
The person I thought held the original version of my life.

But maybe she was never the destination.
Maybe she was just one guard on one stretch of road.
Maybe the point was not to return to her.

Maybe the point was to become the person who could keep walking after her.

Living with cirrhosis is not linear.

Neither is grief.
Neither is confidence.
Neither is learning yourself again.

Some days the guard is still up.
Some days fear still gets the first word.

Some days I am strong.
Some days I am tired of needing strength.
Some days I am grateful.
Some days gratitude feels like an absurd little flower growing out of concrete.

But through all of it, I showed up.
And that counts for everything.

March felt different because something had changed hands.
Fear was still present, but it was no longer the only authority.

Control was still tempting, but it was no longer the only ritual.
The old self was still beloved, but she was no longer an idol.

And the guard I had kept up for so long finally started coming down.
Not all at once.

Just enough for me to see myself more clearly.
Just enough to notice that I am not the same person I was last March.

March included my semi annual trip to the transplant center. This is clipped from a video I did on roadmap snacks. In reality my mind was consumed by how much March just felt like a changing of the guard… that I had up for so long.

And maybe that is not the loss. Maybe that is the proof.

Less pretending.
Less chasing normal.
Less handing power to people who were never going to understand the weight of it.

And more honesty.

More softness where it matters.
More boundaries where they belong.
More trust in the person I am becoming, even if she was not the person I planned to be.

So maybe these were the idols of March.

The old self.
The easy answer.
The perfect recovery story.
The need to be understood by everyone.
The belief that a life with limits cannot still be wide.

One by one, they lost some of their power.

And underneath them, something quieter remained.

Me.

Still learning.
Still listening.
Still afraid sometimes.
Still showing up anyway.

Not the same person I was last March.

And finally understanding that maybe that is not a loss.

Maybe that is the proof.