Would you choose this life?

If I died tomorrow, would I feel happy with the choices I made today?

This is a question I've been asking myself almost obsessively lately. Coming out of my Crohn's flare seven months ago made me realize three things: I do not know how much time I have, my health is directly affected by my choices, and my satisfaction with my life is within my control.

My answer to this question is to live in a way that aligns with past and future me. My favorite consultants are 5 year old Charlotte and 80 year old Charlotte; they help me find my path.

I'll typically ask 5 year old Charlotte "Would you have looked up to me if you could see my life today? Would you choose this life?". 80 year old Charlotte is asked "Are you proud of the work you created and relationships you cultivated in this life? Are you still able to live an active and fulfilling life in your old age?"

One thing I've learned is that it's very difficult to feel pride if either of these two answers "no". If both of them answer "no", it's soul crushing.

Last week I called my mom, and I said to her that I'd realized that I will die if I continue to live my life the way I've lived it previously. My autoimmune disease, I believe, is a direct manifestation of years of choices: choosing to people please even when it was causing me so much distress that I'd pick my skin for hours; choosing to binge on foods that made me bloated and uncomfortable because I needed to blow off stress; choosing to procrastinate my work until the deadlines were knocking on the door, here to collect their payment of late nights and extreme anxiety.

Maybe some people can survive treating their bodies like this. But a combination of genetic predisposition, extended black mold exposure, and a relationship that was so emotionally manipulative that I began believing that I might secretly be an evil person lead my entire system to go haywire. My body began attacking itself.

When I share this perspective with loved ones, they usually tell me that I'm being too hard on myself, to give myself some grace. Physicians will say that this is completely out of my control, I couldn't have caused this myself, this is just bad luck and entirely a result of a biology that I can't influence.

Why can't they see that I'm reclaiming my locus of control?

We now know that my body is in a state of dysfunction, and that I have spent the last decade or so living in a way that causes me significant stress. I've spent the last couple of years analyzing, rewiring, and breaking maladaptive patterns of behavior. Perhaps if I spend the next decade living in a way that respects and honors myself more often than not, my body will be able to heal.

Or not! Regardless, it's a goal worth pursuing; a life of choices that would make 80 year old me proud.