Skin • Well-being • Life after 40

Sometimes a very brief moment is enough.

A sentence that is received differently than intended. A look that triggers something in me.

Or simply this feeling that's suddenly there, without me being able to say why. And then I realize that it's not just about now.

Since I started writing down my memories, it's become increasingly clear to me how much of my childhood is still inside me. Not as finished stories, but rather quietly, between things. In my reactions, in what affects me, in what exhausts me faster than I'd like to admit to myself.

Today I understand things that I used to simply accept.

Why I often try to please everyone, even when I actually need peace and quiet. Why conflicts stay with me longer than I let on. Why relaxation doesn't just happen, but sometimes has to develop slowly. And why I often only become aware of my own limits when I've already crossed them.

As a child, you don't ask yourself such questions. You simply live with it. You sense the atmosphere even before anyone says anything. You know when it's better to be quiet.
When to hold back. When it's easier to adapt than to resist.

And at some point, this becomes completely natural. So much so that later you think it's simply a part of yourself.

As I write, memories surface that haven't had a proper place for a long time. The small apartment. That quiet tension that was always there, somehow. Intangible, but palpable. The feeling of having to be alert, even when nothing was actually happening.

And if I'm honest, some of it has remained.

I still notice how difficult it is for me to truly let go. Even in quiet moments, there's often an inner tension, as if something inside me is still watching over me. Not loudly, more in the background. But there.

It's as if a part of me is still prepared for something to change, for something to tip over, for me to have to react.

That was probably necessary in the past. Today I realize how much energy it takes not to be able to simply switch off this state.

And yet, there are also the other memories.

The sea, vast and calm.
Summer days that felt endless.
Blueberries on your fingers and that brief feeling that everything can be easy.

These moments have stayed with me. Perhaps precisely because they felt so different from so much else.

Because they showed what it can feel like when nothing is demanded of you and you are simply allowed to be there.

Today I see myself a little more clearly. I no longer think there's something wrong with me just because I perceive things deeply or feel moods quickly.

I probably learned that early on simply because it was important back then.

And I think many mothers feel the same way.

We carry a lot with us in our daily lives: responsibility, thoughts, this constant consideration for others. And sometimes we don't just react from the moment, but from something that goes back much further.

You can't tell by looking at us, but our own childhood is often still there.
She intervenes, quietly and unobtrusively.
In conversations.
In decisions.
Into what affects us or costs us energy.

Since I started writing, I understand myself a little better. Not completely and not all at once.
But enough to make them be gentler with me.
So that I don't immediately question myself when something inside me reacts.

And perhaps that, sometimes, is already a lot.