I WENT FOR A BIG WALK (WOW)
Yeah actually, wow! It had been months since I'd done a proper walk. Not a shuffle-to-the-supermarket walk. A real one, sea air, moving legs, being outside for longer than it takes to get from the car to the couch. Chronic illness has a way of quietly shrinking your world if you're not careful, and I'd been watching mine get a little smaller. So when my friend suggested a coastal path, I said yes before my brain could talk me out of it.
I was nervous though. Not about the walk itself, about being a burden. That particular flavour of anxiety that anyone with an invisible illness knows well: the
what if I slow everyone down, what if I need to stop, what if they're secretly annoyed, what if I ruin it spiral that can take hold before you've even put your shoes on.
I shouldn't have worried. These are people who get it.
My boyfriend came too, and he has this thing he does when he can tell I'm struggling but pushing through, he just puts his hand on my back. Not in a 'are you okay?' way that would make me feel like a patient. Just in a 'I'm here' way. It sounds small. It's not small.
They stopped before I had to ask. They checked in without making it weird. Nobody sighed when I suggested we take a break and sit on a rock for a bit (which is a sentence that sounds very old-lady-at-the-park and I'm 25, but here we are). At one point, my friend just quietly matched my pace without saying anything. That kind of consideration, the sort that doesn't announce itself, is genuinely one of the most healing things another person can do.
I had my TENS machine on for the walk, which I'd started doing more recently, and honestly - game changer. Movement with TENS is a completely different experience. The rhythm of walking actually seems to work with it. My body felt more manageable than it has in a while.
We stopped plenty. We sat and looked at the view. We talked about things that had nothing to do with pain or bodies or symptoms, about our favourite food and plans and dumb things that had happened during the week, and I remembered that this is also medicine. Being outside. Laughing with people who love you. Forgetting, briefly, that your uterus is apparently staging a protest.
I hid some stones along the way. Sounds silly but I’d painted little characters on stones with small messages written on the back. Tucked one under a tree. Left one in a bunker looking out over the peninsula. Slipped one into the crook of a tree. Each one felt like a little deposit into something bigger than the walk, into the idea that kindness moves through places, that strangers find things and feel seen, that even on a slow careful day with a TENS machine under your clothes you can be someone who adds something good to the world.
I know how it sounds. The world is a lot right now, genuinely, overwhelmingly a lot and painting rocks is not going to fix any of it. It’s not going to change anything terrible from happening or make the noise quieter. I’m not under any illusions about that. But I keep thinking about who might find one. A little kid on a weekend walk who spots something bright under a bench and loses their mind with excitement. Someone who needed, just once that day, to feel like the world had left something good out for them specifically. Someone who didn’t know they needed to read a small message on a rock until they read it.
Art is revolution, not because a painted stone will fix the world, but because it insists, quietly and stubbornly, that beauty and care still matter. That we’re still here, still making things, still reaching out to strangers. I think that impulse, to create, to connect, to leave small traces of yourself somewhere, matters more in hard times, not less. Don’t hide it away because it feels pointless in all the noise. The noise is exactly why.
I came home tired in a way that felt earned rather than defeated. There’s a difference, and it took me a while to learn it.
Your pace is still a pace. Your version of showing up still counts. And the people worth having around you will never make you feel like a burden for needing to go slowly.
Things That Made This Walk Work
Not medical advice, just stuff that helped.
Go with people who genuinely get it, not people you have to perform wellness for. You should never feel like you're inconveniencing someone for having a body that needs more care.
TENS machines aren't just for rest days. Wearing one while moving can make a real difference, worth experimenting with positioning for what feels best during activity.
Loop tracks are your friend. An out-and-back or circular path means you're never too far from where you started, and there's no pressure to 'finish' anything.
Lots of breaks is not a failure state. Sitting down, looking at the sea, breathing, that's the walk too.
Only do what you can do that day, not what you could do last month or what you want to be able to do next month. This walk, this day, this version of you.
Bring something to give. Painted rocks, a small note, even just a smile at a stranger. Feeling like you contributed something shifts the whole energy of the day.
Nature and mental health are deeply connected. Even a short time in nature can lift the weight a little, don't underestimate it.
The Quiet Support Project | thequietsupportproject.com
