THE WOMAN I THOUGHT I LOST

There was a version of me I knew very well.

She loved makeup. She loved getting her hair done. She loved cute clothes, a good wig, a sharp outfit, and walking into a room looking like she came to handle business.

She was confident. Loud when she needed to be. Outgoing. Ambitious. The kind of person who could work a room, read people’s expressions, catch the energy, and know when to jump into a conversation.

For most of my life, I knew exactly who she was.

Then my vision changed—and for a while, I thought I had lost her.

I have lived with idiopathic panuveitis since high school. I lost the vision in my left eye during college, but my right eye still had 20/20 vision. I continued living, working, parenting, speaking, and building my business. My condition was part of my medical history, but it did not control how I saw myself.

Over the last year, that changed quickly.

As my remaining vision declined, the losses began piling up in ways I had not expected. Some were practical. I could not see colors or small details the same way. Getting dressed became harder. Makeup became frustrating. I could not always tell what looked right, whether my eyebrows matched, whether something was blended, or whether an outfit worked together.

Some losses were more emotional.

Surgeries and treatments changed my eyes. Steroids changed my face. My eyes became puffier. My face became rounder. One eye had already changed after losing vision. I wore different glasses. I did not look the way I remembered looking.

And the truth is, I loved the way I used to look.

People used to compliment my eyes. They would say I had cat eyes or ask where I was from because of their shape. I loved my skin. I loved my cheekbones. I loved doing my makeup and knowing I looked good.

That was not vanity. It was part of how I expressed myself.

So when that changed, it hurt.

There were days when I looked in the mirror and felt angry. There were days when I wanted to see my own face clearly and could not. There were days when I wondered whether I had food near my mouth, something on my skin, crust in my eyes, or some other little thing most people can check without thinking.

Can you imagine not being able to clearly see yourself in the mirror?

That became my life.

Sometimes, the fact that I cannot see my face clearly probably protects me. I cannot spend all day studying every difference. But the memory is still there. I remember how I used to look, and sometimes catching a glimpse of the changes feels like being introduced to somebody I did not choose to become.

I once told someone that it felt as if I had lost my old face.

That may sound dramatic until you have experienced a change you did not ask for and cannot reverse.

It is not only about beauty. Your face is how people recognize you. It holds your expressions. It communicates before you speak. It carries your history. When it changes because of illness, treatment, injury, or medication, it can feel like the world is being shown evidence that something happened to you before you are ready to explain it.

I remember running into a young man I knew from high school. Back then, he thought I hung the moon. He would have carried my books, bought me whatever I asked for, and probably laid across a puddle so I would not get my shoes wet.

Years later, after my eye had changed and I had gained weight, he saw me and reacted in a way that felt like, “What happened to you?”

He may not have meant it cruelly. But I heard the tone. I felt the shift.

This was someone who once looked at me with admiration, now looking at me with something that felt closer to shock or pity.

It shook me.

That moment forced me to confront something I had been trying not to think about: people who knew me before might see the changes before they see me.

• They might notice my eye.

• They might notice my cane.

• They might notice my face.

• They might wonder what happened.

• They might feel sorry for me.

And I hate pity.

People have said things like, “If I were you, I would be in a corner crying,” or, “I could never do everything you do.”

What they do not always understand is that I have cried. I have been depressed. I have been anxious. I have felt angry, tired, and cheated.

But I also have a life.

I have a son. A family. A business. Clients. Ideas. Bills. Goals. People who depend on me and people I love.

What was I supposed to do—stop being myself because my face and vision changed?

That sounds simple when I write it now. It was not simple while I was living through it.

For a while, I did not feel comfortable on camera. I did not feel like myself without makeup. I worried about how I looked. I wondered what other people noticed. I became more aware of every visual difference, even though I could not always see it clearly myself.

I even asked my husband whether the way my eyes looked had ever bothered him.

He entered my life after some of those changes had already happened. His answer was basically no. It had not mattered to him the way it mattered to me.

That conversation stayed with me.

Sometimes the people who love us are not studying the flaws we are fighting with every day. Sometimes we are carrying a much harsher image of ourselves than the people around us are.

That does not erase the grief. It does not mean we should pretend appearance does not matter. It mattered to me, and sometimes it still does.

But I slowly began separating what I looked like from who I was.

The makeup was mine, but it was not me.

The clothes were mine, but they were not me.

My eyes were part of me, but they were not the full measure of me.

I was still intelligent.

I was still funny.

I was still the woman who could walk into a networking session, give strong business advice, and have someone book a call afterward because the work spoke for itself.

I was still a speaker.

I was still a mom.

I was still the CEO.

I was still the person who shows up and shows out.

My confidence had not disappeared. It had been shaken.

There is a difference.

Something that is shaken can be rebuilt.

For me, rebuilding confidence did not mean pretending I loved every change. I still have days when I wish I could easily choose my own clothes, do my makeup exactly the way I want, or look in the mirror and see the face I remember.

I still pay a makeup artist when I want to know for sure that I am snatched and beat to the gods. Let us not get ridiculous. Adaptation does not mean giving up standards.

Rebuilding confidence meant allowing myself to use help without acting as if help erased my independence.

• It meant asking someone what color something was.

• It meant having people check an outfit.

• It meant learning new tools and routines.

• It meant giving myself grace on the days when I did not feel beautiful.

• It also meant reminding myself, loudly if necessary, that I am as amazing as I know I am.
  

That may sound conceited to some people. I do not care.

Negative self-talk comes easily when you are grieving. Your mind can create an entire list of everything you have lost, everything that has changed, and everything you think other people are judging.

Sometimes you have to interrupt that mess.

Sometimes you have to tell yourself, “Girl, you got this.”

Sometimes you have to remind yourself, “You are not new to this. You are true to this.”

Sometimes, if nobody is available to speak you up, you have to speak yourself up.

You need cheerleaders, but you also need to learn how to become one of your own.

I do not believe confidence means never feeling insecure.

I believe confidence is knowing that insecurity does not get the final vote.

I can feel sad about my appearance and still get on camera.

I can miss the woman I used to see in the mirror and still respect the woman standing here now.

I can grieve what changed and still be proud of what I have carried.

In some ways, I am even more proud of myself now.

Running a business is hard.

Parenting is hard.

Living with depression and anxiety is hard.

Navigating the world with limited vision is hard.

Doing all of those things together requires skills, systems, support, and a whole lot of dadgum gumption.

So no, I am not going to shrink because I look different.

I am not going to apologize for taking up space.

I am not going to accept being seen as less capable, less beautiful, or less valuable because illness changed my eyes or medication changed my face.

While I am different, I am not less than.

That is the lesson I had to learn when I thought I had lost myself.

The woman I remembered did not disappear.

She changed.

She learned to listen more closely because she could not always read faces.

She learned to ask for support.

She learned that independence can include tools and people.

She learned that beauty can be expressed in new ways.

She learned that confidence is not something the mirror gets to hand out or take away.

And she learned that sometimes the next version of you is not a replacement for the old one.

She is the old one—with more scars, more skills, more honesty, and a much better understanding of what she is made of.

I thought I had lost her.

It turns out, I was still becoming her.

What part of your old identity are you grieving—and which parts of yourself are still present, even if they now look different?