When do you finally get to start living your life?

When the kids sleep through the night? When they start school? When you have a balanced day?

My 2-year-old daughter was sick last week, nursery cancelled, work piling up. I had every reason not to go to the gym.

But I went anyway — and on the way there, it hit me: I've been waiting for a full stop that's never coming.

Here's the thing: life with young children IS the trenches. The coffee goes cold. You sit down to eat and someone needs water. You haven't drunk water yourself all day. There's always another nursery event, clothes they've grown out of, another illness coming. It's relentless.

So instead of waiting for life to settle before I start living, I'm learning to live IN the chaos.

I want to know that waiting until they leave home to discover who I am means losing 15 years of becoming. That the margins aren't second-best — they're where life actually happens. That I can start a podcast in my dressing gown without makeup, go to the gym when I "don't have time," build systems that make the impossible possible. That progress beats perfection every single time. That self-compassion isn't soft — it's what keeps me going when I miss a week.

Because maybe the goal isn't to wait for the full stop... but to build a life worth living in the commas. The chaos doesn't end. But you can live anyway — with systems, audacity, and kindness toward yourself.