With my first surgery in 2015, I invited anyone and everyone to visit me the day of my surgery to the day I was discharged. They could come by any time. And it wore me out so hard. I didn’t realize I could set these kinds of boundaries with well wishes with presents in tow. People whom I wanted to see, badly. It wasn’t a possibility in my mind to say no. I allowed the same poor boundaries with my last surgery and there were a lot of awkward moments because I just wasn’t ready to speak to that many people.

When I found myself crying in the bathroom with a room full of people I loved in the other room waiting for me, I realized the necessity for boundaries. I had a much worse prognosis than my first surgery and I wasn’t prepared for how lonely that would make me feel. In a room full of people on my personal baseball team. It was incredibly hard to embrace and come to terms with my situation because all my energy went toward comforting those around me cause I looked like hay-ell.

My parameters look different for this surgery. The earliest someone besides my family can visit me in the hospital Is two days. That gives me a day to ask what happened in the surgery 450 times before it actually sinks into my brain, and one day to accept the reality without crying every other second.

The last time I felt I had to keep a smile on my face to comfort others. I love everyone so much, but I have no energy for comforting others. I’m empowering myself to allow me to process my authentic feelings before shoving them down to where I can’t find them until they inevitably simmer up from the deep. I choose to be better to myself than that.

What are tough boundaries that you’ve set in the past with loved ones?

Mae