I didn’t know how much I’d uncover when I asked for help

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I’m not used to slowing down.

Listening to podcasts. Reading. Breathing on purpose.
Meditating. Journaling.

All of it feels new. Slightly unnatural.
Like trying on someone else’s habits.

Growing up, most things were functional.
We maximised productivity. Optimised time. Streamlined processes.

Even reading was functional.
You read for exams. You read the paper so you knew what was happening in the world.
My mum encouraged that. Be informed. Be aware.
It was useful.

So even now, reading still feels like a chore.
Admitting that I don’t enjoy reading out loud feels slightly embarrassing.
Like I’m missing a basic human setting.

Moving to the West exposed me to a wider spectrum of ways of being.
Suddenly, I wondered if I might be slightly ADHD, a neat explanation for why my brain refuses to sit still.
A convenient excuse.

There’s truth in it.

When I read, when I listen to podcasts, my mind wanders.
My eyes drift. My thoughts sprint ahead at a hundred miles an hour.
Nothing really lands.

I remember sitting there, phone in hand, doing absolutely nothing,
which already felt like failure.

My body had already cracked open once before.

But we were trying new things.
And podcasts were apparently one of them.

So I listened to one.
By a woman. About women. About choice.
One of the topics was whether to have children or not.

Forty minutes.
Far too long for me.

I listened anyway, almost desperately, waiting for her to give me an answer I didn’t know how to find myself.

This wasn’t the first time the question had surfaced.
It had been circling me for years.

Years earlier, I watched an interview with Cameron Diaz.
She said she didn’t want children.

This was the 90s.
Something in me went very still.

That’s allowed?
We can just… opt out?

I didn’t know if I admired her or recognised myself.
I just remember the shock of permission.

At uni, years later, someone asked if I wanted kids.
I said I’d adopt them so I wouldn’t have to love them too much.

They laughed.

I laughed too.

But I wasn’t joking.
Attachment felt dangerous.
Even hypothetically.

Thirty years after Cameron Diaz, another woman said it out loud.
And it didn’t land in my ears.
It landed in that old, tight place in my chest.

At the end, she mentioned she was a life coach.

And how to reach her.

So I did.

I’ve always waited for invitations.
Even now, parts of my life feel accidental.

I remember going to her website.
I didn’t really know what life coaches were.
They sounded vaguely woo-woo.
Like people selling me insight I should already have.

I didn’t research her.
Didn’t read reviews.
Didn’t overthink it.

This was my first time asking for help
without knowing what would come next.

I just knew I needed it.

I filled in the form.
I wrote:
I feel like an onion. I don’t know what’s in the core, and I want to find it. I want to understand it.

And then I waited.