This week has hollowed me out.
Tilly came back from her holiday and kept me at arm’s length—words short, eyes distant, heart sealed shut. I know she had fun. I saw the photos, the sun in her cheeks. But she won’t speak to me about it. Not even a whisper.
And it hurts more than I want it to. Because I used to be her home.
I picked her up from club on Monday, heart in my throat. I stood there, waiting for the rush of arms around me, the smile, the spark. Instead, she rolled her eyes.
“Not here, Mum. Not in front of my friends.”
Like I was a stain she had to wipe clean before anyone noticed.
And I broke. Quietly, of course. I always break quietly.
She’s been storm and stone all week. Shouting, snapping, shutting down. And I’ve taken it—absorbed every blow—because that’s what I do. I taught her I would. I bend. I yield. I vanish if it keeps the peace.
But when she lashes out with that sharpness that isn’t hers—when I see him in her—the words hit like knives. Not just because they hurt, but because I know that tone. I lived under it. And now it’s echoing back through my daughter’s mouth.
So I retreat. Not physically, but deeper. Into the dark. Into my head. Into the rot.
And in there, nothing is kind.
My thoughts chew at me.
You’ve failed her.
You’re the problem.
You were never enough and never will be.
Joel’s quiet too. Not in voice, but in presence. Luca leaves today—off with his mum—and I can feel the dread in him, the ache building under his skin. I know that ache too well. It’s a wound you’re not allowed to show.
I want to help, but there are no words that soften this. You just have to sit in the grief of still being a parent when your child is gone.
And I wonder, sometimes, if Joel looks at me and sees the compromise. If some part of him still longs for the family that never formed—the one he hoped for, the one that could’ve been perfect if not for all this… weight.
If he’d be better off with someone newer. Brighter. Not haunted.
Someone who didn’t come with all this damage. Who wasn’t shaped by fear, wired by trauma, frayed from decades of trying to be good enough for people who never asked how I was surviving.
And today—today I slipped.
What if there’s nothing left of me but ghosts?
What if all the best parts of me were burned up in survival?
What if all that’s left is the hollowed shell—the echo, the ache?
Would I be a better mother if I wasn’t so broken?
Would I be a better partner if I didn’t always doubt whether I’m lovable?
Would I be a better person… if I wasn’t me?
I don’t know.
But right now, I feel like a shadow with skin on.
And shadows don’t get held.
They get tolerated.
Stepped over.
Forgotten.