Tripped and Landed at 23

 August 17, 2025

I feel it today. Anxiety. Fear. Like I’m failing at being a woman. Not like… failing at life, not like failing at love, but failing me. Because right now, I’m just someone’s mom. Someone’s wife. And I… I don’t really want to be only those things.

I wanted to be a woman first. Fully, unapologetically, on my own terms. But I jumped. I fell. In love, with my love, and I didn’t know how to wait, didn’t know how to let myself grow first. And now? Now I’m here. I’m in love. I’m holding so tightly I sometimes feel like I’m forgetting myself in the grip of it.

I love what I have. I love it too much maybe, because letting go—even for a second—feels impossible. I want it all to stay, forever, perfect. And yet, I ache for the parts of me I feel I missed. The parts that should have been mine before anyone else’s.

The “easier way” keeps playing in my head, like a ghost. The way where I could have grown first, loved myself first, stood in my own skin before letting anyone else in. But life doesn’t wait. Love doesn’t wait. And I didn’t either.

So I feel it—the fear, the longing, the grief, the love—all at once. I feel it, and I let it be. Because maybe that’s what being a woman really is. Not perfection. Not timing. Not fitting into roles that feel safe. But feeling it all. Feeling messy. Feeling vulnerable. Feeling fully, even when it hurts.

I am more than a mom. I am more than a wife. I am still me. I am still learning. I am still becoming.

Even here. Even now. Even like this.