Trying to Find Myself Under the Pile of Everyone Else’s Needs

I’ve been thinking a lot about something lately. Probably because I’m exhausted, overstimulated, and standing in my kitchen wondering how it’s already Friday when I swear it was just Monday five minutes ago.

Last week, I wrote about turning forty and realizing I didn’t exactly land where I thought I would. Overweight. Overtired. Overstimulated. Slightly irritated by people who wake up early on purpose. I said I was trying to “get myself back,” and I meant it.

But here’s the part I’m still trying to figure out: how?

Because I am a mom of four. I am a wife. I have a full-time job. My kids play sports—which means practices, games, uniforms that are never clean when you need them, and schedules that change weekly just to keep me humble. My husband has a job with uncertain hours, which means some weeks I have help at dinner and bedtime, and some weeks it’s me running the entire show like an unpaid stage manager with a migraine.

We also bought a house that apparently whispered, “I’m fine,” and then laughed maniacally once the papers were signed. Every weekend there’s another project. Another repair. Another “quick fix” that turns into a full-blown event requiring trips to Home Depot, Lowes, and emotional resilience.

So, when people say, “You just have to make time for yourself,” I have questions.

Where? When? Between which obligation?

I want to take care of myself. I really do. I want routines. I want consistency. I want to work out regularly, meal plan, drink enough water, and maybe even sit down without immediately needing to get back up. But life does not seem interested in cooperating.

Because just when I think I’ve got a rhythm going—boom. Someone gets sick. Or there’s a doctor’s appointment I forgot about. Or dinner time arrives faster than expected and no one has any suggestions, but everyone is suddenly starving. Or a mid-week practice gets rescheduled and now the entire evening plan is wrecked. Again.

Routines sound great in theory. In practice, they are fragile little things that shatter the second a child spikes a fever or a coach sends out a “quick update” at 3:47 p.m.

And then there’s the advice. Oh, the advice.

“Getting healthy is just about making better choices.” “Weight loss is all about discipline.” “You have the same 24 hours as everyone else.”

Respectfully… no.

Not all the choices are up to me. Like my 5-year-old waking me up at 2:15 this morning, crawled into bed to give me a hug, and asked where her sister was to which I told her that her sister was asleep...in her bed...in the same room she slept in (because they share a room). So, I took her to the bathroom so she could potty, got her back into bed, and closed the door.

Guess a full night's sleep was not on the agenda for last night.

I don’t choose when my kids need me. I don’t choose unpredictable work schedules, unexpected responsibilities, or the fact that dinner has to happen every single night regardless of how tired I am. I don’t choose the mental load of tracking everyone’s needs while trying to remember my own.

Some days, the best choice I can make is survival.

That doesn’t mean I’ve given up. It just means I’m being honest about the reality I’m living in. Getting myself back doesn’t look like a perfectly executed morning routine or a color-coded planner. It looks like small wins. It looks like trying again after a rough week. It looks like adjusting expectations instead of beating myself up for not meeting them.

Maybe “the best version of myself” right now isn’t the woman who does it all flawlessly.

Maybe it’s the woman who keeps showing up, even when it’s messy. The woman who understands that progress isn’t linear and that caring for herself might have to happen in fragments instead of uninterrupted hours.

I don’t have all the answers yet. I just know that wanting myself back matters. And even if I can’t control every choice, I can keep choosing not to disappear completely under the weight of everyone else’s needs.

Even if that choice looks different every single day.

And honestly? That might have to be enough—for now.