Returning

Notes on getting sick

I haven’t written here in months.

At first, I thought that meant I’d lost interest. It turned out to be something else entirely.

I couldn’t find my way back to the page

What actually happened is simple. I got sick. Suddenly, persistently, and in a way that wasn’t resolving itself. As my health faltered, so did momentum, certainty, and the version of myself I’d always counted on to keep going.

When something in your body stops working the way it’s supposed to, it does more than interrupt your days. It quietly dismantles your assumptions.

About stamina. About competence. About control.

About who you are when the scaffolding comes loose.

There’s a particular disorientation that comes with realizing you can’t will your way through something. You can’t outwork it. You can’t think your way around it. You can’t decide to be “fine” and have that be enough.

My days immediately rearranged themselves around tests, waiting rooms, and not knowing,

In that stretch of time, a lot of what I thought I knew about myself fell apart. I’d believed I was someone who kept going—who could manage pressure, ambiguity, and complexity through sheer forward motion.

That belief turned out to be far less durable than I’d imagined.

What surprised me wasn’t fear, but how quickly the familiar version of me disappeared, replaced by someone still fully herself, but less certain of the ground she was standing on.

At first, I tried to fill the silence. I told myself I should be documenting this. Making sense of it. Turning it into something useful. That impulse faded quickly. There was nothing to shape yet.

Only a clearing.

And clearings are uncomfortable places to linger.

They’re stripped of markers. No milestones. No narrative arc. Just space where something used to stand.

That space isn’t empty so much as unfinished. It resists being organized into before-and-after, progress, or setback. Living inside it requires a different kind of patience—one that doesn’t reward effort or offer reassurance, only the slow discipline of staying put long enough to notice what’s still there.

Gradually, things have begun to shift. Not into answers, but into a clearer kind of attention. I started to see how provisional identity really is—how much of it depends on health, energy, and the ability to keep moving.

A few weeks ago, after a procedure that brought some resolution—though not all the answers—I noticed something unmistakable: color returning to my face, a lightness I hadn’t felt in months.

It wasn’t relief, exactly. It was recognition. I wasn’t restored, and I wasn’t “back,” but I was steady again—aware of how much of the self is built in motion, and how much is revealed when that motion stops.

Brand Therapy™ with Lyn Chamberlin is the biweekly publication of The Brand Dame, a small, nimble marketing team offering brilliant branding advice when you really need it.

Our work is based on a simple idea: you probably don’t need a whole expensive branding engagement. You just need expert branding advice in the moment — a chance to talk through ideas, get unstuck, and walk away with a plan.

Whether you’re a trailblazer or running an organization, this is for you.

It’s branding, reimagined