The Dangers of Drinking Concrete

Beyond the Edge of My Energy...

I wrote recently about returning in memory to the ancient oak tree, about being held under her branches and feeling that quiet, steady comfort, about remembering softness.

This entry is about what happens when I forget.

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.”

I spent most of my adult life taking that literally. It felt like a philosophy made for people like me... ambitious, disciplined, quietly relentless. The kind of person who believes effort can outsmart limitation. I am 51 years old, and I have spent decades unapologetically venturing past my limits... decades of perfecting the art of overriding the whispers of my body... decades convinced that resilience meant endurance. That strength meant pushing. That discipline meant overriding discomfort.

I show up. I don’t quit. I push. I achieve. I keep going long after most people would stop. I do the things I “should”, because I "can"... even when my body says no.

And then sometimes… more often than not... I pay for it.

Drinking Concrete

In jest, my husband suggested the title of this blog 'The Dangers of Drinking Concrete'.

Thing is, he’s not wrong. I swallow discomfort. I harden around it. I turn pain into productivity. Symptoms into inconvenience. Warning signs into background noise. Concrete sets hard. It holds. It doesn’t bend. But, concrete cracks eventually. I’ve cracked more than once.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes when you realise that willpower is not the same as capacity. That determination does not magically expand physiology. That mindset does not override mitochondria, hormones, inflammation, nervous system load. If I just tried harder... managed better... planned more efficiently, I believed I could outwit my symptoms. And occasionally, I could.

But it always came at a cost.

The Ankle Incident

There are moments that show us ourselves more clearly than we’d like.

A few weeks ago, I badly sprained my ankle at the beach. Ironically, I had been frolicking in the surf, feeling free, alive. The ocean gives and takes in the same breath. One wrong step in the shifting sand, and I was down. It swelled. It throbbed. It screamed. The next morning, I went into the city for clinical placement anyway.

Of course I did.

I limped between consult rooms. I smiled through the pain. I elevated it in stolen moments. Told myself it wasn’t that bad. Told myself I could push through. A week later, still swollen and sore, I finally went to the emergency department. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.

Push. Override. Pay later.

It was such a familiar pattern. The quiet negotiation with pain. The belief that endurance equals strength. The subtle refusal to acknowledge limitation. And the hardest part wasn’t the injury, it was recognising how automatic the denial had become.

And yet, I don’t tell this story with judgement. I tell it with compassion. Because this is how learning happens, not through perfect choices, but through finally seeing our patterns clearly enough to choose differently next time.

The Reckoning

During my clinical training, sitting with patients, witnessing invisible illness, holding space for complex stories... something began to shift... something in me began to soften. I could see in them what I had refused to see in myself. That complexity is real. That chronic conditions are not moral failures. That pacing is not weakness. That rest is not resignation. 

There is something profoundly confronting about recognising your own reflection in the case you’re supporting. I began to acknowledge that my cycles weren’t random. They were predictable outcomes of a nervous system that had been asked, repeatedly, for decades, to operate beyond sustainable limits.

Living in denial kept those cycles alive. Denial sounds harsh, but it often wears respectable clothing. It looks like high achievement. It looks like productivity. It looks like “coping.” But underneath, it whispers: "Don't you dare quit. Suck it up. Just drink some concrete. You're all good."

Slowly, I am starting to make peace with the fact that my body has limits. Real ones. Not imagined. Not excuses. Real ones.

And it’s okay.

When Pushing Doesn’t Work

Clarke’s words speak to innovation and expansion. In science and art, perhaps we must test edges to discover new ground. But I live in a body that does not always cooperate with the narrative. This is where motivational quotes begin to feel complicated. Because what happens when venturing into the impossible doesn’t create innovation, but triggers symptoms? What happens when bravery looks less like pushing forward, and more like stopping early enough to protect tomorrow’s energy?

I live inside that paradox. 

Chronic illness teaches a different kind of wisdom. When you live by your energy... when you count your day in invisible units... venturing “just a little past” the impossible is not visionary… it is destabilising. For someone wired like me, uncomfortable with stillness, allergic to falling behind, that distinction matters deeply. Because in my body, not listening to the whisper... pushing beyond the edge of my energy does not expand my world. It shrinks it.

I don’t just “run out of steam,” I cross an invisible line and fall into depletion, the kind that steals days, sometimes weeks. One ignored signal can spiral into many. One act of denial reinforces an old and familiar loop: push, override, pay later.

For me, the impossible isn’t doing more. It’s restraint. It’s stopping before collapse.

Redefining Strength

Part of me still believes in expansion, in discovering what’s possible. And another part knows that protecting my finite currency, means spending wisely. So how do I reconcile these two truths? The part of me that wants to reach farther, and the body that asks me to move more gently? There was a time when I thought acceptance meant giving up. 

Now I see it differently.

Acceptance is not resignation. It is collaboration. It is saying "This is the body I have. These are the conditions that exist. And this life is still worthy of care, curiosity, and possibility." Making peace with the complexity of my health has not meant giving up on growth. It has meant redefining it. Strength isn’t concrete. It bends. It adjusts. It forgives. Listening to my body doesn’t shrink my life the way I feared. It protects it. It expands it. Saying “I can’t today” isn’t defeat. It’s wisdom.

I am learning... slowly, imperfectly... that growth is stopping before collapse. It is leaving energy in the bank. It is building a life that works with my physiology, not against it. It doesn’t live in overexertion. It lives in precision. In noticing the difference between stretching and straining. Between courage and compulsion. Energy once spent on denial can be redirected toward living. Toward choosing carefully. Toward honouring the days I feel strong without punishing myself for the ones that don’t. Even if that feels impossible at first.

Because for someone who has built her identity around capability and endurance, acceptance can feel far more radical than overexertion. Now, I understand that the edge of possibility looks different for me. Perhaps my version of venturing into the impossible is not by pushing beyond my limits, but by accepting them fully.

Sometimes the impossible isn’t doing more... it’s finally giving yourself permission to do less.

Sometimes the impossible thing is trusting that rest is productive, even when nothing visible is being achieved. And perhaps that is the quiet revolution chronic illness offers: Learning that expansion doesn’t always come from doing more. 

Sometimes it comes from finally listening.