For a long time, I didn't know the difference. My days had a rhythm: work, then mom, then sleep — and somewhere in between, friends, Netflix, Amazon. I wasn't unhappy exactly. I was functioning. I was doing everything I was supposed to do, doing it well enough, and moving on to the next thing. I didn't notice what was missing because I never stopped long enough to notice anything.
I took some time away from work, and without that structure, the days opened up in a way I hadn't expected. I started cooking — actually cooking, not just feeding people. I started moving, sleeping, being present with my kids in a way I hadn't been before. I felt lighter. Not because anything dramatic had changed, but because I'd stopped racing to the end of each day.
Looking back at those years of work-then-mom-then-sleep, I feel something I didn't expect: not regret exactly, but a kind of tenderness for the person who didn't know she could slow down. Who thought the pace was non-negotiable. Who was moving so fast through her life that she wasn't really living it — she was just getting through it.
I've always been drawn to questioning what we take for granted. I've gone without shampoo, without a skincare routine, without meat — not as acts of deprivation, but because I genuinely wanted to know what I actually needed versus what I'd simply been told I needed. The world is very good at filling in those answers for you, telling you what you don't have enough of and what you need to buy.
That same question now extends to time. To how I spend it, and whether I'm present for it, or just moving through it.
I don't have it figured out. But I'm paying attention now in a way I wasn't before, and it turns out that's most of it.