My Head Keeps Playing Tricks on Me

My head keeps playing tricks on me and tells me I’m alive, but my heart knows far too well I’m done.

It’s a sentence I whisper to myself in the silence of late nights, when the TV hums in the background but the room feels too quiet. It’s the kind of truth that sits heavy on the chest, a truth you can’t confess in casual conversation because no one really wants to hear it. People want resilience. They want “you’re doing better, right?” They want the version of you who’s okay, even when you’re not.

But the reality is this: I live in a constant tug-of-war between my head and my heart.

My head is relentless. It’s the hustler, the fighter, the strategist. It pushes me out of bed when every part of my body begs to stay still. It tells me to put on the sneakers and push forward like nothing is broken inside of me. It shouts survival, demands performance, forces me into the role of “the strong one.” My head is where all the noise lives. It reminds me of the doctors’ voices, the friends who say, “You’ve got this,” the highlight reels on social media where people clap for recovery stories that always seem neater than mine.

But my heart? My heart is quiet. My heart is honest in ways that cut deeper than any scar etched across my body. It doesn’t perform. It doesn’t pretend. It whispers truths no one wants to say out loud: You’re exhausted. You’re grieving. You don’t even recognize the life you’re living anymore.

My head tells me I’m alive.

My heart tells me I’m done.

And the cruelest part is—they’re both right.

The Split Within

There’s something almost comical about the way the mind works when it wants you to survive. It clings to every reason to keep going: you’re lucky to be here, don’t waste it, think of all you’ve survived already. It’s practical and bossy, always reminding me that I have responsibilities, bills to pay, people who count on me, dogs who look at me like I’m their entire world.

But survival isn’t the same as living.

Survival is waking up and putting one foot in front of the other because you have no other choice. Survival is dragging yourself through another day when the joy has long drained out of your bones. Survival is a brain tricking you into believing that breathing automatically equals living.

My heart doesn’t fall for the trick.

It knows too much. It remembers every surgery, every moment I’ve had to relearn how to walk, every time I’ve stared at my reflection and wondered who this body belongs to. It doesn’t feel alive when I’m limping across a room pretending not to notice the way people glance at me. It doesn’t feel alive when I cancel plans again because the pain wins. It doesn’t feel alive when another doctor tells me we’ll just have to try again.

No. My heart knows that being here isn’t the same as being whole.

The War Zone Inside

Sometimes, I imagine my head and my heart as two women arguing inside of me.

My head wears sneakers—practical, sturdy, built for endurance. She’s all hustle, hair tied back, a don’t-mess-with-me look in her eyes. She says, Get up. Keep moving. You’ve survived worse. You don’t get to quit now.

My heart wears stilettos—delicate, sharp, fragile but fierce. She doesn’t waste energy pretending. She says, Sit down. You’re tired. You’ve given enough. Stop fighting what is already over.

They don’t agree, but they both live inside me. And every day I wake up, I have to choose which pair of shoes I’ll wear.

Sometimes it’s sneakers, dragging myself through the grind of survival. Sometimes it’s stilettos, daring myself to feel powerful for a moment, even if the pain still lives under the surface.

The truth is—I am both women

The Lies of the Mind

My mind has always been a hustler.

It knows how to perform.

It knows how to trick me into believing that survival equals living.

It’s the loudest voice I carry, and sometimes I confuse its volume for truth.

The lies begin small, almost comforting:

You’re fine. Everyone has pain. You’re lucky to still be here.

But they grow louder, sharper:

Get up. Push harder. Don’t you dare let them see you break.

My head tells me that if I just smile wide enough, keep my eyeliner sharp enough, walk into the room as if I own it—even if I limp when I do—then maybe no one will notice the shadows underneath. Maybe no one will see how much of me is stitched together by sheer willpower.

The Performance

I can’t count the number of times I’ve forced myself into a room with a smile that didn’t reach my bones. Networking events, board meetings, dinners where I slipped my shoes off under the table just to give my swollen ankle a moment of mercy.

My head thrives on those performances. It thrives on the illusion of “I’m fine.” It loves the applause, the subtle nods of respect when people say, You’re so strong. I don’t know how you do it.

I smile, I nod, I play along. Because what else is there to do?

Because people want strength, not honesty. They want resilience, not the raw truth of how much it hurts.

So my mind lies for me.

It wraps me up in sneakers—practical, reliable, steady—and shoves me back into the world.

It tells me: This is what it means to survive.

The Cost of Pretending

But here’s the thing about lies: they take energy. They drain you. They build a mask so heavy you forget what your own face looks like beneath it.

Pretending has a cost.

Every time I smile through the pain, I can feel my heart cracking just a little more. Every time I say, “I’m good, thanks for asking,” when I’m anything but good, I can feel myself pulling further away from the truth.

The truth is that some days I am not okay.

The truth is that some nights I cry into my pillow so quietly that even the dogs don’t stir.

The truth is that being alive doesn’t always feel like living.

And my heart knows it.

It watches my head play its games and thinks, You can lie to the world all you want, but you can’t lie to me.

When My Head Saves Me

Still, I can’t hate my head for lying. Because sometimes those lies save me.

Sometimes, when the pain is unbearable, my head distracts me with the thought: Just get through today. Sometimes, when I’m drowning in grief, my head throws me a rope called resilience and says, Climb.

It’s not always pretty, but it works. It keeps me moving.

I think of the mornings when my body screamed to stay in bed but my head said, No. Get up. Shower. Put on lipstick. Lace up your sneakers. Step outside.

And somehow, I did.

Somehow, I’ve made it through days I thought I wouldn’t survive—all because my head refused to let me stop.

So yes, my head lies. But maybe those lies are their own kind of truth. Maybe they’re not meant to trick me into denial but to keep me alive long enough for my heart to catch up

Sneakers as Armor

There’s something symbolic about sneakers. They’re not glamorous. They’re not delicate. They’re built for survival, for endurance, for motion.

For me, sneakers became more than shoes—they became armor. Every time I laced them up, I was telling the world, I’m still here. I can still walk. I can still fight.

But here’s the paradox: sneakers were also my disguise. They let me blend into the world, function, pretend. They carried me into places where my heart didn’t want to go. They became the symbol of my head’s survival lies.

Sneakers said: Look at me, I’m fine.

But my heart whispered: You’re not fine. You’re exhausted.

And both were right

The Burden of Applause

Here’s the cruelest trick of all: the world loves my head.

The world claps for the woman who gets back up after 17 surgeries. The world admires the one who keeps working, keeps smiling, keeps posting the carefully curated recovery updates. The world doesn’t see the tears behind the bathroom door, the limp at the end of the day, the nights spent staring at the ceiling wondering how many more times I can do this.

And in a way, I let them believe the lie. Because applause is easier than pity. Because strength is easier to show than brokenness. Because admitting you’re done is terrifying—what if no one knows what to do with you after that?

So I let the applause come, even as my heart stays quiet, even as it aches.

Because sometimes it’s easier to let the world believe I’m alive than to confess to myself that my heart feels otherwise.

 The Heavy Knowing of the Heart

If my head is a hustler, my heart is a witness.

It doesn’t argue. It doesn’t perform. It doesn’t sugarcoat. My heart knows the kind of truths that aren’t made for polite conversation—the kind that sit heavy in the body and remind you that no matter how many times you smile or pretend, some wounds never fully heal.

My heart doesn’t shout like my head does. It whispers. It aches. It waits until the noise of the world quiets down, and then it tells me the truth I don’t want to hear.

You’re tired.

You’re grieving.

You’ve been carrying more than one soul should have to bear.

The Weight of Surgeries

Seventeen surgeries. I say it now like it’s just a number, a statistic, a fact that belongs in a medical file. But my heart remembers each one—not the paperwork, not the hospital gowns, not even the sharp smell of antiseptic. My heart remembers the after.

The mornings I woke up groggy and stitched together, my body marked like a battlefield. The hours I lay in recovery rooms listening to the steady beep of machines, pretending it was the sound of hope instead of survival.

My head kept saying, This one will fix it. This one will get you closer to normal.

But my heart knew better. My heart kept track of how many times “normal” slipped further away.

There’s a grief in that no one prepares you for—the grief of losing the life you thought you’d have. It’s not sudden like death; it’s a slow unraveling. Each surgery peels away another version of the future you once believed in. My heart has had to bury those futures over and over again

Nights That Don’t End

My heart remembers the nights more than the days.

The nights when the pain was so sharp it felt like lightning cracking through my leg. The nights when I stared at the ceiling, my body too exhausted to cry but my spirit too restless to sleep. The nights when I felt like I was the only person awake in the entire world, carrying the unbearable weight of being alive when I didn’t want to be.

Those nights, my head was quiet. No lies. No pep talks. Just silence.

And in that silence, my heart whispered: You’re done. You don’t have anything left to give.

There’s a stillness in that kind of honesty. Not dramatic, not loud. Just an emptiness that says, I’ve reached my edge.

The Loneliness of Grief

Grief is heavy enough when you lose someone you love. But the grief of losing yourself is a loneliness like no other.

People don’t always understand. They say things like, At least you’re alive, or It could be worse, or You’re so strong. And while I know they mean well, my heart hears something different: Don’t speak your grief out loud. Don’t make us uncomfortable with your pain.

So I’ve learned to carry it in silence. To nod and smile. To say thank you when people call me strong, even though I don’t feel strong at all.

But my heart knows the truth. My heart knows that sometimes being alive feels like standing at the edge of a life I no longer recognize.

A Body I Don’t Recognize

One of the hardest parts of survival is waking up in a body that doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

There are mornings I catch my reflection and I don’t recognize her—the woman who limps across the room, the woman who counts her scars, the woman who winces when she puts her weight down. I look at her and think, This isn’t me. This isn’t who I was supposed to become.

My head says, Adapt. Adjust. Be grateful.

My heart says, You’ve lost her. The girl who ran, the woman who danced, the version of you who felt free in her own skin—she’s gone.

And maybe my head is right. Maybe I have to adapt. But adaptation doesn’t erase the grief. My heart has had to mourn the body I once had, the freedom I once felt.

When My Heart Speaks Softly

There are rare moments when my heart’s voice isn’t heavy—it’s just soft. Like the way it feels when Orion rests his head on my chest and looks at me like I’m the whole world. Or when Oliver curls against me, his small body reminding me that life still asks me to show up, even in my brokenness.

In those moments, my heart doesn’t say you’re done. It says something quieter, something gentler: You’re tired, but you’re still loved.

And maybe that’s the hardest truth of all—holding both things at once. The exhaustion and the love. The grief and the gratitude. The ache of being done and the pull of being needed.

The Honesty That Hurts

If the mind plays tricks to keep me alive, the heart holds the honesty that hurts. It doesn’t let me hide. It doesn’t let me run. It forces me to look at myself—not the polished, smiling version I show to the world, but the raw, unfiltered truth of a woman who has been to hell and back and still wonders if she can keep walking.

And yet… maybe that’s why my heart hasn’t given up completely. Because while it tells me I’m done, it also tells me something else: You’re still here. You’re still listening. You’re still carrying these words.

And maybe that means I’m not truly done after all.

California as a Mirror

Chicago raised me.

The cold sharpened me.

The winters taught me how to endure.

But California? California forced me to look at myself in a way I never expected.

Chicago Winters

In Chicago, survival felt normal. Everyone was hustling against the wind, bracing themselves against the cold. The snow pressed down on all of us, so my own heaviness didn’t feel out of place. The weather matched my body—frozen, heavy, aching.

There, pain was private but also invisible, hidden under coats, boots, and scarves. Everyone bundled up. Everyone trudged through. It was easy to pretend. Easy to hide. Easy to let my heart feel “done” because no one could see it anyway.

California Sun

But then I came here.

California doesn’t let you hide. The sun exposes everything. The light finds the cracks you try to cover up. The ocean doesn’t care for your excuses—it pulls at you, insists you soften, insists you release.

Here, people run barefoot on the beach. They sip iced lattes in January. They wear dresses that don’t hide scars. And being in that light forced me to see myself differently, too.

It didn’t erase the pain. It didn’t fix the injuries. But it mirrored me back to myself in a way that said: Yes, you’re broken. But look, you’re still radiant in the sun.

The Mirror Effect

California became a mirror.

Every palm tree whispered resilience.

Every sunset dared me to believe in beauty despite the ache.

Every warm breeze reminded me that softness was still possible, even in a body that had hardened with scars.

At first, I hated it. The contrast was too sharp—how could the world be this beautiful while I was this broken?

But then I realized: maybe the light wasn’t mocking me. Maybe it was showing me that both things could be true. That pain and beauty can exist in the same breath. That I could limp along the shoreline and still be part of the picture.

Returning to the Line

My head keeps playing tricks on me and tells me I’m alive but my heart knows far too well I’m done.

That’s where I began, and it’s where I’ll end. But the meaning has shifted.

When I first whispered those words, they felt final, like a curtain closing. My head was the hustler dragging me through life, my heart was the mourner grieving all I’d lost, and I was caught in the middle—believing I couldn’t live with both.

But now I see it differently.

The Trick Isn’t a Lie

My head’s tricks aren’t betrayals. They’re survival spells, cast in the moments I need them most. They keep me walking when I’d rather collapse. They remind me that I have bills, commitments, friends, dogs, and dreams—even if small—that still tether me here.

Sneakers on my feet, sneakers on my soul. That’s the head at work.

The Heart Isn’t Weakness

And my heart? It isn’t failure to admit it feels “done.” It’s honesty. It’s courage. It’s the voice that refuses to let me bury the truth of what this life costs me. It reminds me to grieve, to rest, to honor the weight I carry instead of constantly denying it.

Stilettos on my feet, stilettos in my spirit. That’s the heart speaking.

The Truth Is Both

I am not one voice or the other. I am both.

Alive and done.

Surviving and grieving.

Sneakers and stilettos.

And maybe that’s what resilience really looks like—not pretending to be fine, not always performing strength, but learning how to carry contradiction without letting it crush you.

The Becoming

So here I stand, between two voices that will never stop arguing. My head will always shout. My heart will always whisper. And I will always live between them.

But maybe that’s the gift. Because life isn’t tidy, and neither am I.

And when the day comes that my head is quiet and my heart is still, I hope the world will remember me not as the woman who chose one voice over the other, but as the woman who carried both and kept walking anyway.

The Last Word

So I’ll leave it here:

My head keeps playing tricks on me and tells me I’m alive.

My heart knows far too well I’m done.

And yet—here I am.

Walking anyway.

Writing anyway.

Becoming anyway.