Energy Management

People assume the hardest part about living without a stomach is the eating.

It isn’t.

The real battle is energy.

Food used to be automatic. You ate, your body processed it slowly, and energy was released over time like a controlled burn. Without a stomach, that system changes completely. Food moves through too fast. Nutrients absorb differently. Hydration becomes harder to maintain. Blood sugar can swing unexpectedly. Some days your body feels reasonably normal. Other days it feels like someone unplugged the battery halfway through the afternoon.

That unpredictability becomes the real currency of life.

You stop measuring days by hours and start measuring them by energy reserves.

Can I make it through this shoot?
Can I handle this drive?
Can I finish editing tonight?
Can I trust my body not to crash halfway through?

Most people never think this way because they never have to.

I do now.

Photography made me aware of it quickly because landscape photography is energy-intensive by nature. It is not just standing around with a camera. It is long drives before dawn, hiking in the dark, carrying weight, dealing with weather, thinking creatively while physically exhausted, then driving home after everything is done. Sometimes the hardest part is not getting the shot. It is making it back to the vehicle safely after your body has decided it is done for the day.

There are moments where I can feel the wall coming before it arrives.

It starts subtly. Focus gets harder. Decisions take longer. Motivation disappears first. Then comes physical fatigue, shakiness, or that strange hollow feeling where it feels like your body is running on fumes, no matter how much you ate earlier. Sometimes eating fixes it. Sometimes it doesn’t.

That is one of the frustrating realities people do not see.

You can do everything “correctly” and still lose the day.

So I learned to manage energy differently.

I pace harder.
I prioritize harder.
I recover harder.

I no longer waste energy casually because I cannot afford to.

That has changed how I work, travel, and even socialize. There are days where I look perfectly normal externally while internally calculating whether I have enough left in the tank to finish a conversation, attend an event, or drive another hour home.

That invisible math is exhausting by itself.

And yet, strangely, it has also clarified life.

When energy becomes limited, priorities become obvious.

You stop wasting time on meaningless obligations.
You stop saying yes to everything.
You become protective of peace because chaos has a physical cost now.

I think that is one reason photography still matters so much to me.

A sunrise feels worth spending energy on.

Meaningful conversations feel worth spending energy on.

Creating something real still feels worth it.

Scrolling endlessly on a phone does not.

Neither does drama.
Neither do fake relationships.
Neither does living performatively for other people.

Losing my stomach forced me into a strange negotiation with life itself. Every day requires tradeoffs. Every outing has a cost. Every project consumes fuel that may take longer to replace than it once did.

But it also made me more intentional.

Ironically, having less energy made me value life more carefully.

Some days, I still get frustrated. Some days I feel angry at what was taken from me physically. Some days, depression shows up hard when my body refuses to cooperate with the things my mind still wants to do.

But I have also learned this:

Energy is not just physical.

Hope matters.
Purpose matters.
Curiosity matters.
Having something you still care about matters.

Without those things, exhaustion becomes heavier.

Photography gave me a reason to keep moving forward even when my body became unreliable. It gave structure to recovery. Purpose to difficult mornings. Direction when life felt uncertain.

And honestly, sometimes the goal is not thriving.

Sometimes the goal is simply adapting well enough to keep going.

That counts too.