AUGUST 2025The packing away of yourself
“Holidays with children are never just holidays.”
Little armies of tiny shoes, shoved swimsuits, kids SPF 50 sprays that really shouldn’t be sprays, snacks for every possible mood and a bonus one for the unexpected mood. By the time you’ve zipped up the last suitcase, you’ve already packed away part of yourself.
This summer, I noticed just how much of me I’d folded into those bags.
“Clothes weren’t a look anymore, they were tools.”
It started with the clothes. Suddenly, clothes weren’t “a look” anymore, they were tools. Shoes that could walk 12–15k daily. Swimsuits that “behaved”. Birkenstocks chosen for pushing our 3-kid stroller situation. Not the joyful “What makes me feel like me today?” but the practical “What will let me survive today?” And somehow, that practicality began to feel… normal.
The same with skincare. I packed only the basics, nothing indulgent. Haircare stripped down too. No serums, no masks, just survival bottles. A broken nail followed me across three countries, a small but constant reminder that vanity had been benched.
“There was no time to linger in front of a mirror.”
Every morning, I planned my outfit in my head while making three different breakfasts for three different children. There was no time to linger in front of a mirror, no time to try on my “new stuff”. Just throw it on, and go. If something didn’t suit me, there was no backup plan. Best part? No one cares.
Even in supermarkets, I noticed it. The silent moment where I couldn’t remember what I wanted for myself. My mind so attuned to everyone else’s lists, mine had evaporated. Once, I reached for a tub of Salted Caramel ice cream at the checkout. And then I put it back. “We’re not buying much today,” I told myself. Priorities rearranged, again. I still bought it eventually, several, lol.
“At first, you feel stripped bare. Then you realize there’s a softness to it.”
But here’s the strange thing: there’s a kind of freedom in it too. The succumbing. The acceptance. At first, you feel stripped bare, frustrated by how little of yourself is left. And then, on some days, you realize there’s a softness to it. A falling back in love with the bare bones of you. The you who can exist without all the extras. The you who shows up anyway. Once, my daughter (my middle, IYKYK) told me I looked different and “not like mummy” the day I took my time to get dressed. So honest and funny.
“That living room stayed a fantasy. A room I loved, but never got to keep.”
Still, there are moments that sting. In Orlando, we stayed in a house with the coziest upstairs living room. A TV tucked perfectly into a corner, with a couch begging to be curled into and a fluffy white duvet we’d left there. Every time I walked past, I thought: This would be the perfect spot once the kids are asleep. But when they finally were, that room was out of reach. It sat in the middle of their bedrooms, and I knew even the flicker of the TV could wake them. It wasn’t worth it. So I never used it. That living room stayed a fantasy. A room I loved, but never got to keep.
“Downtime isn’t really downtime.”
And then there’s the downtime that isn’t really downtime. When you finally steal a moment for yourself, you’re so disoriented that you don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes I’d need a recovery nap before I could even think about the bliss. Other times, I’d resist sleeping because I didn’t want to waste the little free time I had. Either way, it felt like I was always borrowing against myself. I also missed them, the kids that is. Annoying, right?
“You’re not gone. You’re just shelved for a while. Waiting.”
This is the part of parenthood that I know is ordinary but invisible. The small ways you pack yourself away. Not with sadness or regret, but with a quiet recalibration. You’re not gone. You’re just shelved for a while. Waiting.
And yet, somehow, in the middle of all of that, the broken nails, the practical swimsuits, the silenced living rooms, you’re still there. Not glamorous, not center stage. But present. And maybe that’s enough.
Because sometimes the most extraordinary thing is realizing that even when you’ve packed yourself away, you’re never truly lost.
- Reni Adebayo