Women are expected to be graceful – Always. But that’s not a practical thing when you’re a human being, unless you’re a dancer; and even then you may stumble or make a misstep in a choreographed routine from time to time. Maybe that’s why I was a tomboy when I was younger until the end of my teen years. I must have had some internal guidance telling me that it was impossible to live up to the pretty ribbons my mother perpetually tied in my hair and the patterned dresses she zipped and buttoned me into that made it impossible for me to move as freely as I desired.

Being a girl became more challenging as I hit puberty. When my body started to change, in some ways it made playing the sports, which were mostly designated for boys, harder to play. Later, life still became more physically restrictive as I was told how to stand, what to wear, how to paint my face and style my hair, and sometimes how to speak, all in the service of putting my femininity on full display. Yet none of that made me feel graceful. Not the curves my body developed, not the clothes I wore, nor the mannerisms I adopted.

The only times I felt graceful was when I was doing something physical. Doing things that my now deceased grandmother never tired of reminding me were meant for boys: running outdoors, kicking a soccer ball, throwing a football in a perfect spiral, competing in gymnastics, skiing across open terrain or down hills, riding my bicycle, or even my least strong activity, swimming. Doing those things made me feel I had full autonomy over my body to test my strength, and push my physical limits. Unfortunately, my body no longer affords me the ability to do these things as I wish to.

So how does one exercise the gracefulness their body literally prevents them from being? In my case – and I suppose it might be the same for others living with a chronic illness – being graceful has become about how I face the daily challenges and large adversities that loom within all the unknowns to come. One can be the demanding “bull in the china shop” trying to force action from or answers out of doctors, who although they haven’t cured you yet, go above and beyond to figure out what is happening in and to the body they’ve chosen not to give up on and to which they continue to deliver care.

I can also work to preserve what was once plentiful in my physical movement, through mindful interactions within relationships with friends and family. The primary way I see doing this for myself is through acceptance. Accepting that the strength and agility I may be losing from within my body because of continuous pain is being replaced by something stronger, the love and care from those who remain close to me.