I no longer recognise the woman who used to be so hungry for more

Dear Delyara, I used to be full of forward motion. Plans, ideas, hunger, excitement, a sense that my life was still opening and I was supposed to move with it. Now I mostly feel tired, practical, and suspicious of my own ambition whenever it tries to come back. I don’t know if life has humbled me or worn me down. Sometimes I look at younger people starting things and feel something painful and complicated — not exactly jealousy, not exactly grief, maybe both. Because I remember what it felt like to believe I had time and energy and momentum. Now every new dream has to push through childcare, bills, fatigue, self-doubt, and the accumulated disappointment of all the other things that did not become what I hoped. I haven’t only lost opportunities. I think I have lost some of my appetite for myself. That is much harder to admit.