She looks back now and sees a younger version of herself trapped in endless loops of “what if.” She questioned everything: her worth, her work, her instincts as a mother, even whether she’d picked up all the dog poop before a playdate. The worries were small and huge at the same time, and they stole minutes, days, years she can’t get back.
Then Louis arrived, and the noise in her head finally met its match. She learned to pause before spiraling, to ask what truly mattered in that moment. Fear stopped being a wall and became a warning light instead. Motherhood didn’t erase her anxiety, but it gave her a reason to fight it. In choosing to be present for her son, she accidentally chose to be present for herself too — and that, she realizes now, is the life she’d been desperate to live.
