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Dear Lily. You stopped hugging me first six months ago. You don't know that I noticed. I notice every single day. You still hug me back. When I open my arms you come. You're four — you don't know yet that there's a difference between coming when called and reaching first. But I know. I felt the moment it changed. I just didn't understand why until recently. I want to tell you what happened. Not because you'll ever read this. Because I need to say it somewhere. I used to be different. Not to you — you've only known this version of me. But there was another version. The one your father married. The one who reached first. Who didn't need a moment before she could be warm. Who didn't carry a tension in her body that a four-year-old could feel before she'd said a single word. You felt it. You're four and you felt it. Children always do. Here's what was happening inside me while you were learning not to reach. I was exhausted in a way I couldn't name or fix. Not tired from doing too much — something deeper. A depletion that sleep didn't touch. I'd wake up already behind. Already braced for the day. Already running a low-grade emergency that had no specific source. I tried to fix it. I tried going to bed earlier. Still woke up depleted. I tried eating better. Nothing changed. I tried therapy. Understood myself more. Still came home with nothing left. I tried being more intentional with you — putting the phone down, getting on the floor, showing up deliberately. I showed up with my body. My nervous system was somewhere else. You felt the difference. Of course you did. Your little body is designed to read mine. To co-regulate with mine. To take its cues about safety and warmth from the frequency I broadcast into every room I walk into. And the frequency I was broadcasting was: not now. Not available. Brace. I wasn't cold to you. I wasn't cruel. I loved you every single second. But love and presence are not the same thing. And my nervous system had run so low that presence — real presence, the kind that reaches first — had gone somewhere I couldn't access. You learned to wait for me to reach. A four-year-old learned to wait. Then I found something that explained what had happened. Not burnout in the vague sense. A nervous system locked in chronic survival mode — running a constant low-level emergency that redirected every available resource away from warmth, away from spontaneity, away from the specific openness that makes a child feel safe enough to reach. It wasn't that I didn't want to reach. My system had stopped allowing it. I found Liven. Took the quiz. Three minutes. Said yes to almost everything. Started the next morning — five minutes before you woke up. Week 2: I walked into your room in the morning and something was different in my body. Not manufactured warmth. Actual warmth. Available. Open. You looked up at me. And you reached. Small arms. First. I stood there and held you and thought: there it is. That's what I'd been missing. That's what you'd been missing without knowing you were missing it. Week 4: Down five pounds without changing what I ate. The tension in my face was quieter. You told me I looked "happy like before" — and I didn't know there was a before in your memory until you said it. Week 6: We were reading before bed and you fell asleep against my shoulder. Fully. The way children sleep when they feel completely safe. I sat there for a long time. Week 8: You hugged me first this morning. Just walked up and wrapped your arms around my legs the way you used to. Didn't wait. Didn't check. Just reached. I don't know if you know what that meant. You're four. You shouldn't have to know. It's been four months. I can't give back the six months you spent learning to wait. That's something I'll carry. But you're reaching again. And I'm here when you do — not performing here. Actually here. With a nervous system that finally has something to give you. Dear Lily. You stopped hugging me first. And then you started again. I'm going to make sure you never have to stop. If your child has learned to wait for you to reach first — If you can feel the distance between you and your own child and don't know how to close it — If you love them completely and show up partially — It might not be who you are. It might be what your nervous system has left to give. Liven has a quiz. Three minutes. Free. Link below. 💙