One morning, I sat at my parents’ kitchen counter with a hot cup of coffee and wrote down a simple task list for the day ahead. I wrote down items like buying baby formulas, getting groceries, preparing a work presentation, and scheduling pediatrician visits. It was the ordinary list of a mother trying to keep her world moving forward smoothly.
Then I stared at the empty white space at the bottom of the paper. I picked up my pen and slowly wrote three final words at the end of the list: Something for me.
I stared at those words for a very long time as my coffee went cold. They were remarkably simple words, yet they felt completely unfamiliar to me after everything that had happened. For months, every waking moment had been dedicated entirely to caring for Hailey. Before that, so much of my energy had been spent catering to Liam, his demanding schedule, his career, his comfort, and his emotional needs.
