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i'm so tired. tired of my life. i love my family but somewhere along the way i lost my sense of self. i'm mom, wife, caregiver, householder, school-volunteer-coordinator, the-one-who-knows-when-the-pediatrician-appointment-is, the-one-who-buys-my-mother-in-law's-birthday-gift-and-signs-my-husband's-name-to-it, etc, etc, etc. and i know i do not have enough time to get my dream life. or maybe this is actually my dream life? and i just do not know how to enjoy it anymore? i do not know which one is true and i am 39 years old and i think i should probably know by now. i am writing this on a Tuesday at 10:14 PM. i am in bed. my husband is reading next to me. my daughter is asleep. my son is asleep. i have not had a thought in my own head since 6:30 this morning when i thought "what is for lunch in their lunchboxes." that was the thought. that was the only thought. i used to paint. i had a basement studio. i have not opened the door to that room in four years. i have a key to it on my keyring. i walk past it every day going to the laundry room. i look at the door. i do not open the door. i do not know if there is paint left in the tubes. probably not. paint dries. i used to read novels. i used to know the writers i loved. i used to underline things and write in the margins. i read parenting articles now. i read emails from the school. i read recipe blogs that take twenty minutes to scroll past the lady's personal story to get to the actual recipe. i used to laugh from somewhere deep. somewhere — i do not know where exactly — somewhere in my chest. i smile politely a lot now. i laugh at things my children say. i do not remember the last time i laughed at something an adult said. wait. my friend Lila said something funny at a school pickup three weeks ago. i think i laughed. i do not remember what she said. is this it? is this the it i was working toward? did i sign up for this? i did sign up for this. i wanted children. i wanted Tom. i wanted a house. i have all the things i wanted. why am i tired in the bones in a way that does not feel like sleep can touch. i do not know who i am writing this to. i do not write things. i do not journal. my mother kept a journal her whole life. when i was a teenager i thought she was self-indulgent for it. i do not think that anymore. i think she was trying to remember she existed. last Sunday i was making sandwiches for everyone for lunch and i caught myself looking at my own hand spreading the mustard on the bread. i was looking at it like it belonged to someone else. i had a thought that scared me. i thought: "whose hand is that." not in a dramatic way. just — like — i had genuinely lost track for a second. i did not tell Tom. i finished the sandwiches. i ate one. i tasted nothing. i'm afraid that whatever i was at 24 — the girl who painted, the girl who underlined the novel, the girl who laughed at Lila's joke and remembered it the next day — i'm afraid she is gone. not paused. gone. i'm afraid that the math of my life is that 24-year-old me put a deposit down on something and 39-year-old me is the one who has to pay it forever. i love them. i want to be very clear about that. i love my son. i love my daughter. i love my husband. i would die for any of them. i'm tired and i am also afraid that being tired is the rent for being loved this much. three weeks ago i was scrolling on my phone at 1 AM. i could not sleep. i had read a Substack about — i do not even remember what it was about. someone in the comments had said something about doing a body thing for five minutes a day. she said her therapist had recommended it. she said she had not been a five-minutes-a-day kind of person before. she said something had shifted. she had typed the name. Liven. i downloaded it. i did it that night. i have done it every night for twenty-three nights. i am not going to tell you it has fixed anything. it has not fixed anything. i still made sandwiches for everyone today. i still did not taste my sandwich. last Thursday at 4 in the afternoon i went down to the basement to put a load of laundry in. i walked past the door of the studio. i stopped. i used the key on my keyring. i opened the door. i did not turn on the overhead light. i let in the hallway light. i sat on the stool in front of my easel. i did not paint anything. i sat there for about half an hour. i smelled the paint smell that was still in the room. i wanted to hold a brush. i did not. i wanted my hands to do something. they did not. i came back upstairs after thirty minutes. i did not lock the door behind me. i went and made my children a snack. nobody knew i had been in there. my husband asked me later that night if i was okay. i said yes. i meant it more than i had meant the last fifteen times i had said it. i do not know what this is. i do not know if this is a midlife crisis or if this is the part where i become someone again or if this is just a Tuesday night and i am tired and i will wake up tomorrow and forget i wrote any of this. i am 39. i have a basement studio with the door unlocked. i did not paint anything today. i did not paint anything yesterday. i might not paint anything tomorrow. the door is unlocked. that is more than i had last month. i love my life. i think. i think i love my life. i am going to put my phone down and lie next to my husband and try to remember that. that is what i have tonight.