Nobody warned me that going to the grocery store alone would one day feel like a luxury experience.
I wouldn’t have believed them anyway.
There was a version of me, not that long ago, who moved through the world with a kind of freedom she didn’t fully appreciate at the time.
She walked into libraries on random afternoons just because she felt like it. She took ferries across Sydney Harbour on Tuesday mornings, bought a boba tea, watched the skyline pass by, and thought this is nice without realizing she was living inside a moment she would later miss enormously.
She had no idea what was coming.
And honestly, she probably would’ve panicked.
Her
I was never the loudest person in the room.
I’m Colombian, but not the version people usually imagine. I’m quiet. More observer than performer. I notice things. I move through places slowly. I pay attention.
And back then, I had the time to do that.
I walked through Sydney on ordinary afternoons with nowhere urgent to be. I’d stop for coffee, wander into bookstores, sit in libraries for two hours doing absolutely nothing productive, and call it a good day.
Which it was.
I just didn’t realize silence was a luxury at the time.
I cooked too. Properly.
Complicated recipes. Long recipes. The kind that use every pan in your kitchen and somehow convince you it was worth it.
My husband, who is a chef, would watch me cook and occasionally offer suggestions in the careful tone professionals use when they’re trying not to interfere too much.
Cooking became my creative outlet.
Ironically, it’s also part of how I found him in the first place. He saw my cooking videos online. One thing led to another, and now I have someone professionally qualified to witness me burning toast while holding a baby.
Life is funny like that.
I had hobbies. A passport. A boba tea habit. Entire afternoons that belonged completely to me.
And absolutely nobody needed anything from me before 9 a.m.
I didn’t know I was supposed to appreciate that more on a random Tuesday.
Now
My favorite meal has always been breakfast.
Turns out my daughter agrees. At least on the mornings I don’t burn it.
I used to follow actual recipes. I used to talk about “elevating my cooking,” which is a phrase I apparently once used unironically.
Now my signature dish is two scrambled eggs, one piece of toast, and a live crying soundtrack adding urgency to the entire experience.
Gordon Ramsay would absolutely have concerns.
But she ate it, so honestly? Successful service.
Someone asked me recently what I like to do in my free time.
My honest answer was:
shower.
Not travel.
Not read.
Not explore new restaurants.
Shower.
Ten uninterrupted minutes of hot water while listening carefully for suspicious silence somewhere else in the house.
At this point, a long shower feels less like hygiene and more like emotional recovery.
I protect it aggressively.
I eat standing up now too. Usually over the sink. Sometimes directly from the pan because plating food suggests a level of organization I can no longer confidently promise.
I used to sit down for meals.
Now I ambush calories whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Last week I woke up, realized I had slept three uninterrupted hours, and genuinely thought:
Wow. Incredible sleep.
Three hours.
A year ago, that sentence would’ve sounded deeply concerning. Now it feels restorative. Like maybe I could answer emails, reorganize my life, and become a better person if given another hour.
And then there’s the hazard detector motherhood quietly installs into your brain sometime during postpartum.
A continuous background process called:
what if.
The bee at the park.
The dog on the sidewalk.
The coffee table corner.
A grape cut slightly wrong.
Another toddler sprinting in our general direction with absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
Not all rational.
Absolutely all constant.
Nobody really explains that motherhood is partly becoming a loving person and partly becoming a full-time risk assessment department operating on very little sleep.
Intrusive thoughts are intruding.
Relentlessly.
My Current Definition of Luxury
Things that now qualify as a five-star experience:
A shower longer than ten minutes. Already discussed. Still elite.
Running errands alone with a coffee in hand. No rushing. No listening for crying. Just me, a parking lot, and temporary freedom.
Target.
Listen, where I live there honestly isn’t that much to do, so Target has quietly become our weekly field trip.
We walk the aisles. Sometimes get Starbucks. I browse the seasonal section like I’m studying important cultural artifacts.
If you had told my Sydney self that Target would become a highlight of my week, she would’ve been concerned.
She would not have been entirely wrong.
Sleeping more than three hours uninterrupted remains the ultimate dream.
And finishing one episode of a series in a single sitting now feels genuinely impressive.
Not across four days.
Not in seven-minute increments.
The whole episode.
Like a stable adult.
Eating a meal while it’s still warm also deserves recognition at this point.
Plated.
At a table.
Sitting down.
Using actual cutlery.
Maybe one day I’ll return to the elaborate cooking version of myself.
Right now, survival cuisine is where we are.
What She Would Think
I think about that older version of me sometimes.
The one sitting on the ferry with a boba tea in hand, watching the Sydney skyline and feeling like the world was very large and very available.
If she could see me now, she would probably be confused by the sleep situation.
She would definitely have questions about the Target excitement.
And she would be deeply alarmed by how emotionally attached I’ve become to uninterrupted showers.
But she also didn’t know what was coming.
She didn’t know about the baby.
Didn’t know one tiny person would arrive and completely rearrange the structure of my days, my brain, my priorities, and my understanding of exhaustion.
She couldn’t have known that the thing she was slowly walking toward through Colombia, ships, Australia, airports, and one random TikTok conversation… was this.
This loud, exhausting, beautiful, slightly chaotic version of home.
And honestly?
I think she still would’ve chosen it.
I just think she would’ve stayed a little longer at the library sometimes.
Walked a little slower through those ordinary Tuesdays.
Appreciated the silence before it became something rare enough to miss.
Both Things Are True
I love my daughter more than I’ve ever loved anything.
I also miss going to the bathroom alone.
I miss cooking without multitasking. I miss sleeping until my body decided it was done sleeping. I miss walking through the world without mentally calculating every possible danger within a five-meter radius.
Both of those things are true.
And neither cancels the other out.
Loving your child and missing parts of your old life are not opposites. They’re just two honest things existing in the same person at the same time.
I wish more women said that out loud without guilt attached to it.
So if you’re reading this while reheating the same cup of coffee for the third time, hi.
I see you.
And if you get the chance this weekend, go to Target alone.
Get the coffee.
Walk slowly.
You’ve earned it.