I turn 40 in four days.

There. I said it.

And strangely, I’m not having the existential crisis I might have expected. Instead, I keep thinking about something much simpler: this summer feels like summer again.

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed that feeling.

For almost a decade, summer hasn’t quite had the sweetness I remember from when I was younger. But this year, somewhere between London, Paris and Greece, it came back.

I’ve read on beaches, planes and trains, eaten things I can’t stop thinking about, wandered through an exhibition that genuinely inspired me, and discovered places I immediately wanted to save.

Maybe it’s the approaching birthday making me sentimental. Or maybe I’ve remembered how much I love collecting little pieces of a summer as I go.

So here are a few things I’ve collected along the way that feel worth bringing home.

Seeing: Frida Kahlo at the Tate Modern.

I finally made it to Frida Kahlo. Remember?

And what stayed with me most wasn’t actually one particular painting. It was her.

I’ve always known the broad strokes of her story, but seeing so much of her life and work together made me realise how deliberately she created her own identity.

This icon of a woman refused the idea that somebody else could tell her who she was.

When people tried to categorise her work as surrealism, she pushed back. She insisted that she wasn’t painting dreams; she was painting her reality.

I loved that.

There was something almost rebellious in the certainty of it: you can call this whatever you want, but I know what it is, okay?

She played with identity constantly. Through her clothes, politics, art, relationships and the way she presented herself to the world. She didn’t seem interested in fitting neatly into anybody else’s definition of Frida Kahlo.

I left thinking how liberating that must be.

To decide who you are and then go ahead and BE HER.

Now that’s something worth taking into 40.

Reading: Three very different summer books

My reading this summer has been slightly all over the place, which is exactly how I like it.

The Burning Library

Fast, captivating, and exactly the kind of thriller book that makes you keep saying, one more chapter. I flew through it. Sometimes that's exactly what I want from a summer book: something that grabs me quickly and doesn't ask me to work too hard for it.

Against the Loveless World

The complete opposite. Harsh, heartbreaking and heavy, but so beautiful. I read it in two days and was genuinely hungover from it afterwards. It’s the kind of book where you finish the last page but don't leave immediately.

Beach Read

And then, a palate cleanser. I hadn't read a proper light romantic comedy in such a long time, and I'd forgotten how lovely it can be to simply read about romance and falling in love. Light, warm and exactly what I wanted after the emotional devastation above.

Now that I think about it, it's probably exactly what a summer reading pile should look like.

Eating: The shrimp pasta I cannot stop thinking about

I have developed an obsession with shrimp pasta.

Specifically, the shrimp pasta at a little local taverna called Porto, by the beach in Corinth.

I’ve ordered versions of it elsewhere since, but nothing has quite hit the same way.

It’s deceptively simple: pasta, tomato, big juicy prawns. But the sauce has this incredibly deep flavour that I’m convinced comes from some shrimp broth, plus a spice I have been completely unable to identify.

I don’t know. I just know it HITS.

And apparently my obsession has now become a family affair.

And I will apparently spend the rest of the year ordering it everywhere and trying to recreate it at home, in the hope of finding one that comes close.

A few Paris addresses

I love saving addresses from people I trust, so here are a few from this trip I’d happily go back to:

Le Marais + Fleux
For wandering, interiors, design and beautiful things you absolutely do not need.

Marché des Enfants Rouges
Go hungry. Fresh produce, lots to eat, and a stop at The Butcher of Paris.

A little corner of the 2ème
A tiny fruit and vegetable market, coffee at L’Arbre à Café and a browse through Librairie Petite Égypte. Market, coffee, books. Honestly, what else do I need?

Liberté
For a very good croissant or pastry. No lengthy explanation required.

Café de Flore
Yes, iconic and touristy. But sometimes you simply want to sit at Café de Flore in Paris with your daughter and enjoy the fact that you’re sitting at Café de Flore in Paris with your daughter. Un point c’est tout.

Aux Crus de Bourgogne
For a proper Parisian bistro moment.

Anyway, nothing groundbreaking. Just a few places I really loved.

Making (kinda?): How to eat a shawarma

My sister asked me to illustrate how to assemble and eat a shawarma for her supper club project.

Which is how I found myself turning one of Lebanon’s greatest culinary achievements into a series of doodles.

I’ve always doodled, so getting to combine that with Lebanese food was a very specific kind of joy. Actively manifesting more projects like this.

What I’ve loved about this summer is not one enormous, life-changing thing.

It’s been a collection.

A painting that made me think differently about identity, a book thrown into my beach bag, a bistro in Paris I wanted to remember, a plate of pasta by the sea, and drawing shawarma instructions because somebody asked me to.

Small things, collected across different cities and different versions of myself.

And four days from now, I’ll turn 40.

I thought that sentence might feel heavier than it does. Instead, I keep coming back to something much sweeter:

This is the summer I turned 40.

And somehow, after almost a decade of summers that passed without really feeling like summer, I got one back.

I think that’s worth bringing home.

See you on the other side. ♡

If you enjoyed this one, like, subscribe or share it with someone who might enjoy it too. And if you’re new here, you can catch up on my last two Curated Finds here and here.

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A few days ago, on a midweek, scorching-hot day in London (the city I moved to because it would never be that hot), I walked into a café. It was Tuesday afternoon, and I stepped into another dimension.

If you’ve ever read the Japanese novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold, you can imagine the premise: a tiny basement café in Tokyo where, if you sit in a specific chair, you can pause time for as long as it takes your coffee to cool.

The local London café I stood at didn’t have a time-travel chair, but it offered something almost as rare for a self-employed mom at the end of July: a few minutes of complete stillness.

I had been at the library next door, falling asleep over my laptop screen. I desperately needed caffeine to stay conscious. So I stepped out, walked into the nearest café, and stood at the counter waiting for an iced latte.

Outside, London was a furnace. Yet another suffocating heatwave that turns simple tasks into slow-motion chores. Inside this little place, there was no music and no barista fighting with the grinder machine. Just ceiling fans humming lazily overhead and men (yes, only men) sitting alone at scattered tables, quietly scrolling/staring at their phones.

For a few minutes, I wasn’t sweating through a packing list or checking emails. And most importantly, I wasn’t feeling guilty. I was floating.

And God knows, I needed to float.

As I waited for my coffee, my mind replayed the previous ten days.

I missed writing to you last week because we were deep in part one of our summer: Paris and Disneyland.

It was a beautiful and relentless trip. Core memories were unlocked, endless croissants were consumed, and Disney was officially checked off the list.

Watching my daughter's face light up at the Disneyland castle, I had this strange, emotional jolt of déjà vu. I was suddenly nine years old again, standing in that same spot with my family thirty years ago.

The surroundings were unchanged (surreal!). The same music was playing, the same pastel storefronts were still there, and the same smell lingered in the air. But my place in the story had completely shifted. Thirty years ago, I was the child being sheltered, entertained, and taken care of. Now, I was the mom holding the sunscreen, checking queue times on my phone, and carrying the invisible weight of making it all magical.

And then there was the landscape of our holiday itself.

We were in Paris as a trio. My daughter, her dad, and me. To any stranger passing us by, we looked like the typical nuclear family. The reality is, we aren’t together anymore. But with time, maturity, and a lot of quiet effort, we’ve built a bridge where we can share holidays, laugh over dinners, and give our daughter seamless core memories.

Thirty years ago, I thought families only came in one shape. Now I know family isn’t about the structure at all. It’s just making a space where a child feels safe and loved, no matter how you have to piece it together.

Of course, when you’re self-employed, “being on holiday” is mostly a lie. Freelance life doesn’t pause just because you’re at Disneyland.

Case in point: in the absolute middle of the Disney whirlwind, sandwiched between Minnie, Pluto, and sticky sweet apples, I had to physically step into a quiet corner for ten minutes to take a job interview call with a recruiter.

There was something absurdly funny about pressing myself against a wall in the French heat, forcing my voice into a calm, corporate, “desk-at-an-office” tone, while the recruiter had absolutely zero clue I was ducking behind a souvenir shop in Disneyland. The call ended, I hung up, and stepped straight back into the spinning teacups queue.

So when we returned to London for an awkward week in limbo, sandwiched right between Paris and part two of our summer (starts tomorrow), I reached a point where I couldn’t hear myself think.

It was the 29th of July, the day of that massive, glowing full moon.

I woke up crushed under a heavy blanket of mother-guilt. I had no itinerary lined up for my daughter that day. I had an intimidating stack of work, a house to manage, endless snacks to serve, and zero energy to face the heatwave. Being the parent of an only child comes with a very particular kind of summer guilt.

If I am not actively entertaining her, who is? Am I letting her down?

And yet, by some peaceful miracle, it turned out to be the smoothest day of the week. A playdate happened effortlessly, and my work found its place.

Waiting for my iced latte, I suddenly realised how much of my summer had been spent reacting to a narrative inside my own head.

The day I’d spent dreading hadn’t unfolded the way my mind had predicted at all.

When we’re exhausted, our brain tells us we’re failing just because we don’t have an itinerary lined up. It tells us we aren’t doing enough, even while we’re in Disneyland carrying the entire weight of the day. We get so consumed by the panic of keeping up that we miss what’s actually happening in front of us.

The playdate happened. The work got done. The bridge held.

I picked up my iced latte and walked back into the heat. London hadn’t cooled down, and my inbox was still waiting. The packing list for Summer Round Two was still sitting on my desk at home.

Nothing outside the café had changed.

But one by one, the stories I’d been telling myself had quietly fallen apart.

If this post brought a little calm to your inbox today, feel free to hit the heart button, share it with a friend, or subscribe if you haven’t already. It means the world!

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I’ve always loved the idea that we’re all living completely different lives, yet somehow worrying about the same things.

Over the past couple of weeks, I kept being reminded of that in unexpected ways.

A conversation that echoed the exact worries already running through my own head. A smile exchanged with a complete stranger in the pouring rain. One of those tiny moments that reminds you people notice kindness more often than we think.

None of them changed my life, but each one quietly reminded me that, despite how convincing our own little bubbles can be, we’re sharing this experience of being human with millions of other people.

I don’t think we remember weeks because of the big things.

We remember them because of the conversations that lingered afterwards, the book that made us stop and think, the film that unexpectedly made us emotional, or the recipe we ended up making three days in a row.

Looking back, that’s exactly what the past couple of weeks have been for me.

So here are a few things that stayed with me:

Reading: Therapy by David Lodge

I recently finished Therapy by David Lodge, and it stayed with me long after I turned the last page.

The novel follows a successful television writer who struggles with anxiety and depression. What fascinated me wasn’t so much the plot, but the perspective. For much of the book, we experience the world through his anxious mind before later seeing some of those same moments through the eyes of the people around him.

It was a gentle reminder that anxiety doesn’t just influence how we feel, it also edits the stories we tell ourselves.

It’s not a fast-paced novel, but if you’re interested in psychology or simply enjoy books that explore the human mind with honesty and humour, I’d definitely recommend it.

Still thinking about: Toy Story 5

I wasn’t prepared for the tiny slap in the face that came with Toy Story 5.

Halfway through, it suddenly hit me that I watched the very first Toy Story when I was about my daughter’s age, and now I’m watching the fifth one with my own daughter.

When did we become the grown-ups?

Beyond the nostalgia, I loved that the film tackled something so many parents secretly (or not so secretly) worry about: screens replacing toys. Somehow, seeing Pixar build an entire story around that made me feel less alone.

It also sparked some lovely conversations at home. Let’s just say one tiny Sylvanian family member called Chichi isn’t being ignored anymore. :)

Listening: Unicorn Girl

My sister recommended this podcast months ago. She was right, and I was very late to get into it.

I finally pressed play a few days ago and I’m already hooked. Safe to say I’ll be listening to more than the first 2 episodes.

Making: My go-to overnight oats

This has become my favourite tiny act of kindness towards tomorrow’s self.

It takes less than two minutes to make, and waking up knowing breakfast is already waiting feels like a little win before the day has even started. Healthy, filling and one less decision to make on busy mornings.

Here’s my current recipe:

• ½ cup rolled oats

• ½ cup semi-skimmed milk (or any milk you enjoy — I simply use equal parts oats and milk)

• 2 teaspoons Greek yogurt (for a little extra protein and creaminess)

• 1 teaspoon of a crushed seeds and nuts mix (I use the Linwoods Flaxseed, Almonds, Brazil Nuts, Walnuts & CoQ10 blend)

Mix everything together, leave it in the fridge overnight, then add your favourite toppings in the morning. Mine are half a banana, blueberries, strawberries when they’re in season, and about 15g of peanut butter.

Simple, nourishing and one less decision to make before coffee. Here’s the recipe card if you want to save it!

Watching: Alpha Males

This one isn’t necessarily a recommendation, it’s simply what I’ve been watching lately.

It’s light, funny and occasionally ridiculous, but underneath all the comedy it quietly explores modern relationships and masculinity.

More than once I’ve found myself wondering what I actually admire in men. Traditional masculinity? Equality? Confidence? Kindness?

I love it when something that’s meant to entertain quietly leaves me thinking.

P.S.

Frida Kahlo is still waiting for me at the Tate Modern.

I was convinced she’d make it into this edition, but life had other plans. Hopefully you’ll find her in the next Curated Finds instead.

As always, if you’ve been reading, watching or making something you’ve loved lately, I’d genuinely love to hear about it.

Leave a comment

See you in two weeks.

Lynn ♡

If this made you think of someone, send it their way. It genuinely helps.

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I’m going to start this article about comfort zones with a very uncomfortable story.

As a self-employed mum in London, my family worries. Naturally. I understand why. Freelance life is unpredictable, and when you’re raising a child mostly on your own, people who love you tend to look at your life and see a spreadsheet full of risks.

So when my dad met a Lebanese businessman who owned a company in London, he did what dads do. He saw an opportunity to help, put us in contact, and hoped something useful would come out of it.

I called the man, dutifully.

He invited me to their offices, and I went.

We chatted, had lunch, talked about work, life, business and London. I suspect he left that meeting thinking I was a slightly miserable, struggling single mum who needed rescuing, which was both kind and mildly horrifying.

A week later, he invited me back to spend some time shadowing the business and getting a better sense of what they needed.

The place itself felt like a whole other world inside London. Different pace, different conversations, different priorities. The kind of London you don’t necessarily stumble into unless someone opens the door and says, “Come in, have lunch, let me show you around.”

The conversations continued for a little while, but they kept going in circles. The people were genuinely lovely. Kind, generous, good people. But they were also comfortable with the way things had always been done, and I could feel the difference between what they thought they needed and what I could see was possible.

Eventually, it stalled.

Then, around ten days later, I got the call.

What they really needed, I was told, was administrative help. Five days a week. In their office.

Their office is an hour and a half away from where I live, where I do the school run, take care of my daughter, manage freelance work, cook dinner, answer emails, chase invoices, remember costumes, book dentist appointments and attempt to be a functioning adult.

By the time I got that call, the answer was obvious. Not because the people weren’t lovely, or the business wasn’t interesting, but because the logistics simply didn’t fit the life I am actually living.

And life seemed determined to underline the point for me.

On my way back from their offices, the Elizabeth Line had a power outage, the journey stretched even longer than expected, and somewhere in the middle of trains, delays and timing calculations, the school called.

It was one of those calls that makes your heart jump before you even know what it’s about. Nothing dramatic had happened, but it was enough to remind me of the fragility of the whole system: school pick-ups, freelance deadlines, after-school clubs, tired evenings, and one parent trying to be in several places at once.

Standing there, trying to work out how long it would take me to get back, I remember thinking: this is exactly what I was worried about.

Not the work, but the distance.

The universe wasn’t handing me a job after all. What it was handing me was clarity.

And that is where I started thinking about comfort zones.

Because technically, I had stepped out of mine. I made the call, and I went to the meeting. I travelled across London. I entered a completely different world. I listened, observed and stayed open.

I did the thing people tell you to do. I said yes to the uncomfortable thing.

And I did get rewarded: with insight.

That, I think, is the part we forget.

We talk about leaving our comfort zones as if the reward must be obvious and immediate. A new job, a relationship, a sudden transformation, or a door opening dramatically while the music swells.

But sometimes the reward is quieter. The reward can be understanding what doesn’t fit, and seeing your own life more clearly from a different angle.

A few weeks later, my daughter went for a sleepover, and another version of the same lesson appeared.

Everyone asked me the same question.

“So what are you going to do?”

The answer seemed obvious to everyone. Go out, meet friends, go on a date, get dressed up, and have fun!

I smiled and nodded every time because it was easier than explaining that I had already planned exactly what I wanted to do the moment the sleepover was confirmed.

My big child-free night consisted of a sushi burrito, When Harry Met Sally, my living room, and complete control over the TV volume.

At first, I thought this was me staying firmly inside my comfort zone. After all, I did stay home, watch a film, and I ate exactly what I wanted.

By most people’s standards, I completely wasted a free Saturday night.

But the more I think about it, the more I realise that wasn’t the uncomfortable part. Going out wasn’t the uncomfortable part, and staying in wasn’t my comfort zone at all.

The uncomfortable part was the empty house, not hearing “Mum” every five minutes, and walking past her bedroom, knowing she was somewhere else, safe and happy, making memories that had nothing to do with me.

It was trusting other people with the person I love most. It was the fact that I was temporarily unnecessary, and sitting in the silence instead of rushing to fill it.

Halfway through the evening, the thoughts almost crept in. You know the ones? The ones that tell you what you should be doing, who you should be by now, and what a free Saturday night should look like.

What “having a life” is supposed to mean. You should go out. You should make the most of it. You should be more fun.

You should relaunch your life.

This is one all the aunties love to say. Roughly translated, it means: “Get married again.”

But what is fun if not a different version of what makes each of us feel good?

Why is a crowded restaurant automatically more valid than a quiet film, and why is a date more exciting than uninterrupted solitude? Why do we trust everyone else’s definition of a good time more than our own?

I realised that night that comfort and avoidance aren’t the same thing.

I could have distracted myself and filled every minute. I could have turned the evening into proof that I was fun, social, desirable, alive and thriving.

Instead, I sat in the discomfort and discovered it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought.

The next morning, I woke up slowly. I read and played affirmations. I drank my coffee in peace without a deadline. I enjoyed the luxury of uninterrupted headspace, and I realised I had been focusing on the wrong thing.

It reminded me of what I wrote about in The Everything Shower and Survival Mode: how sometimes survival looks less dramatic than we expect.

I kept saying I hated having an empty house.

But what if that wasn’t the story?

What if the story was: that my daughter was having a fantastic time with people I fully trusted. Safe, happy, taken care of by adults other than me for once, expanding her world and building her own memories.

And what if my role wasn’t to mourn the empty house, but to appreciate the gift of a little space before diving back into motherhood again?

Then there was the birthday minibus.

A sentence I never thought I’d write with any emotional significance.

The birthday girl made her entrance, the music was blasting, nine-year-old girls were dancing at the back like they were headlining a festival, and the adults were doing that very specific parent thing where you try to look enthusiastic while quietly wondering how your life has led you to waving your arms to party music with questionable lyrics on a minibus full of people you barely know.

And yet, somehow, I was having a good time.

One of the strangest things about parenthood is that it drags you into experiences you never would have voluntarily signed up for.

School gates. Sleepovers. Birthday parties. WhatsApp groups.

And minibuses full of strangers.

And then, somewhere along the way, those strangers stop being strangers, and the things you never chose become part of the life that chose you.

That day, watching the girls sing and dance at the back of the minibus, I had one of those strange little flashes of gratitude.

Because thanks to my daughter choosing me as her mum, I have lived experiences I would never have accessed otherwise.

I have entered rooms, streets, schools, homes and conversations that my old life would never have led me to.

There was also the email I almost didn’t send.

Very Faith or Fear of me, really.

A simple work email, objectively harmless, but one that required me to make myself visible and to ask for clarity. It felt wildly exposing but I sent it anyway.

And the response I received was thoughtful, kind and more reassuring than the anxious story in my head had allowed for.

That was another tiny piece of evidence this month.

That sometimes discomfort is not a warning sign, but simply the feeling of stepping forward before your nervous system has caught up.

And maybe that is also what happens when we leave our comfort zones.

We don’t just become braver, we become wider.

Each experience widened my perspective and made the next uncomfortable thing feel a little easier.

Because that is what happens, I think.

Hard things become easier. Slowly, through evidence.

You remember that:

You made the call.

You got on the train.

You sent the email.

You survived the empty house.

You waved your arms on a minibus and lived to tell the tale.

And so, your confidence grows, along with your faith and your options.

Lately, I’ve become interested in taking myself as the project rather than constantly trying to change other people, force outcomes, or analyse everyone else’s behaviour.

Of course, I don’t mean it in a self-obsessed way, although arguably writing essays about your inner life on the internet is not helping my case.

But in a curious way. I ask myself every day:

What can I understand about this situation that might make me more honest, more grounded, more awake?

The older I get, the more I think understanding is where the power is.

Because life is constantly trying to teach us something. Through the opportunities that don’t fit, through the silence we don’t want to sit in, or through the people we meet.

The real question is whether we are willing to sit with the lesson long enough to hear it.

And sometimes that lesson is waiting on the other side of a long commute across London, or hidden inside a minibus full of singing children.

And sometimes it is sitting quietly in an empty house, next to a sushi burrito and a film you’ve seen a dozen times before.

It just takes time to see it.

My journey through uncomfortable situations continues, apparently.

As I was writing this essay, I realised there are three things in my life right now that feel remarkably similar to the stories above.

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P.S. Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.

I almost didn’t send this first standalone edition because I thought, “Is this boring?” A book I’m reading, a series I’m watching, a cold coffee shortcut, a small London balcony, a few thoughts from the middle of ordinary life.

But then I remembered that “boring” is often what we call things when they are actually ordinary but meaningful.

And honestly, that feels like most of my life right now: raising my daughter, rebuilding a creative life, half-mocking the motivational books I secretly need, watching series that make me feel good, making cheap iced coffee at home, cleaning a tiny balcony, trying to create paid work that feels human, and writing about the small things that keep us going.

Isn’t that the point, really? To find little pockets of lightness, let things feel good without needing to justify them, notice what lifts us even slightly, and let it count.

So, here we are: the first standalone Curated Finds! A few things I liked, needed, noticed, or returned to this month.

Inside, you’ll find: a Cinderella retelling that made me rethink the “evil stepmother,” a self-help book I half-mock but clearly needed, a couple of series that made life feel real in the best way, an iced coffee shortcut for the Apple Pay-weary, the salmon bowl that makes me feel like I’ve aced motherhood for 12 whole minutes, a neglected balcony with a tiny Cinderella transformation, and a small invitation.

1/ Books I’ve read lately

I recently finished Lady Tremaine and loved it so much I took a day off to read it in one go.

It tells the Cinderella story from Lady Tremaine’s point of view, and honestly? Fascinating!

Because suddenly, she is not just the “evil stepmother” from the version we grew up with. She is a woman, a widow, a mother, trying to survive in the age of “a long time ago,” where women had very little power and mothers had to make choices inside systems they did not create.

And as a single mum myself, I read it with a completely different kind of understanding.

Sometimes you look at a woman in a story and realise: maybe she did what she had to do with the options she had. The “villain” can also be exhausted, and survival looked very different before women were allowed to build full lives on their own terms.

And then, almost immediately after, I had one of those “okay, I am stuck, I need a pep talk and possibly a whip back to life” moments.

So I finally picked up a used £2 copy of You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero.

I bought it because I needed a fresh pep talk back into myself every morning. I’ve been waking up at the crack of dawn lately to have a bit of headspace and reading time before the day starts asking things from me, and honestly, sometimes you need a book that is not subtle.

It is loud, motivational, slightly ridiculous in places, and exactly the kind of thing I half-mock while secretly needing every word.

2/ Watching: series that make life feel real

Lately, I’ve been drawn to series that make me feel good without pretending life is perfect.

Shrill is one of them. It is funny, awkward, tender, and full of that very specific energy of a woman slowly realising she does not have to become smaller, quieter, thinner, easier, or more palatable before she is allowed to want more for herself.

And then there is The Four Seasons, which I loved for a slightly different reason.

It made me think about how life is always happening in the middle of everything else. The friendships, the marriages, the awkwardness, the ageing, the petty moments, the funny ones, the disappointments, the tiny repairs, the conversations that happen while someone is chopping something in the kitchen or pretending everything is fine.

It is real in a funny way. The kind where people are ridiculous and loving and annoying and trying. Which, honestly, is probably how most of life is actually lived.

3/ The iced coffee that stopped my Apple Pay beeping

Small discovery: the Nescafé Espresso Concentrated Iced Classic

I bought it after the Tonic Health guy on Instagram said it had no nasties, because I got tired of hearing my Apple Pay beep all around London every second of every day.

And I know I’m not the only one. The cost of living has made so many of us revisit how we spend, what we spend on, and what we can still enjoy without pretending money is not part of the conversation.

One of my small solutions lately has been to spend more mindfully. Not in a miserable, joyless, “we are never allowed nice things again” way. Absolutely not! There is joy in nice things, and we all know it. Nothing will change that (for me, at least).

But it is very easy to let yourself go financially when life is busy, London is expensive, and every iced coffee feels like a tiny emotional support purchase.

So I’m trying to be more creative. Enter cold coffee at home. A nice glass, ice in colourful moulds, maybe a straw (on a good day, if I’m feeling like the main character of my own kitchen).

And you know what? I like it.

It also makes the coffee shop feel more special again. Less like a daily leak in my bank account, more like a little occasion.

4/ The salmon bowl that makes me feel like I’ve aced motherhood

One thing I’ve been making on repeat lately is a salmon bowl for us.

Rice, salmon, cucumber, avocado, soy sauce, a little kewpie mayo or sriracha (optional), whatever seeds or dried seaweed, and suddenly we have a bowl full of actual nourishing things.

And every time Alex eats one before going back out into the world (a world that seems very committed to offering children candy sticks full of sugar, blue slushies, and those mystery jelly sweets), I feel like I’ve aced motherhood.

For about 12 minutes, but still!

It is not a complicated meal, and it barely counts as a recipe, but it feels generous without being exhausting, healthy without being joyless, and it’s a small thing that says: We are fed, and we are okay.

5/ The balcony my daughter refused to let me abandon

The thing that actually lit me up this month was our balcony.

There is something very lovely about having a daughter who is growing into her own person. She has her own ideas now, her own sense of beauty, her own sudden missions.

And one day, she looked at our small London old-build balcony - dusty, mouldy, and fully neglected - and decided that no, this would not do.

She got me up from the couch and made me clean it. She had opinions, and I did feel like Cinderella (since we’re on the topic) minus the prince.

And somehow, with a bit of sweeping, rearranging, wiping, and twinkle lights, we transformed it. It’s far from the balconies I pinned on my Pinterest vision board, but it’s our own tiny little corner that feels like POSSIBILITY.

A dusty old balcony became somewhere we might sit in the evening with a drink, a blanket, and the very satisfying feeling of having made something better with what we already had.

6/ Last but not least: A small invitation

One more small thing: I’ve started offering relaxed 1:1 coffee sessions through The Freelance Millennial.

They’re for freelancers, small business owners, or anyone trying to untangle the messy middle of working for themselves: pricing, positioning, marketing, content, admin, boundaries, offers, or simply “I have 47 tabs open in my brain and don’t know what to do next.”

It’s not a scary business audit, and it certainly is not a formal coaching package.

It’s a focused coffee chat with practical next steps, for anyone who wants to bring a little more clarity, structure, and calm into their work.

You can find more details here, and follow along on Instagram here.

And while we’re here

I’d love to start using future Curated Finds to spotlight small businesses, freelancers, creative projects, cafés, brands, or founders doing lovely things.

If you run a small business or know one I should discover, send it my way (in the comments, DM, Instagram, etc). I’d love to take a look and maybe give you - or them - a shout out here!

And voilà for this time. I hope you enjoyed this little monthly pause.

Breadonbutter is a labour of love, and I’m so grateful every time someone reads, replies, shares, or supports this space.

If this made you think of someone, send it their way. It genuinely helps.

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Millennials: raised on slow Sundays, now powered by coffee, nostalgia, and low-level panic.

Every Tuesday at 5 PM, I pick up my daughter after her school club.

5 PM at the school gate means the usual crowd has already disappeared. The rushing parents checking their watches and toddlers escaping toward the road are long gone, probably home for dinner.

It was just the Tuesday club parents standing in a loose semi-circle outside the gate while our kids painted somewhere inside. I’d seen these parents before, but only in passing, so I got away with small smiles and quick nods, as they’re the kind of people you recognise instantly but know absolutely nothing about.

I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve felt strangely shy lately. Slightly ironic for a Leo, although I think we’re just better at hiding it.

Not shy as in not making eye contact or talking to anyone, but more aware of myself somehow. More awkward in spaces where friendships already seem formed. None of my usual mum friends has kids in this club, so every Tuesday I arrive with the same tiny internal negotiation:

Do I stand alone? Do I start a conversation? Do I pretend to check my phone?

DEEP BREATHS. JUST SMILE FFS. I’m telling you, I’ve been so weird lately.

I stood in the loose circle, and we started the way all parents do.

Number one on the small talk list: the weather. Is it hot, is it cold, is it windy? As if the weather had never existed before. Then came the pollen attacks, hitting our throats at the worst possible moment. Then someone’s child refusing to eat anything from the school menu this week.

Eventually, one parent mentioned having a horrible day at work, and suddenly the conversation relaxed into itself. We moved on to homework, how intense it feels now, and how stressed the kids seem sometimes.

I mentioned how strict homework used to feel when we were young, and somehow that opened a portal.

Within minutes, we were talking about Walkmans and Discmans like survivors of another civilisation.

I asked:
“Did anyone else sit next to the radio with their finger hovering over Record and Play, waiting for your song to come on?”

Here, inner millennials UNLEASHED.

It was immediate chaos. Everyone started talking at once.

The shared trauma of the DJ speaking over the intro, trying to time the recording, then hearing “90.5 Light FM!” screamed directly over the bridge of your favourite song. A vision of my little red radio cassette player sitting on my night table flashed through my mind.

Then someone mentioned MSN Messenger, and the entire group collectively remembered the violence of a Nudge.

And for a few minutes, something softened.

The awkwardness disappeared, and my self-consciousness melted away. Because we weren’t really talking about technology anymore, but about a version of life that felt slower and less optimised.

Back then, boredom still existed.

Unlike our Gen Alpha kids, you were used to waiting for things. You missed things and people. Kids, parents, and friends disappeared for hours, and nobody panicked.

Even friendships felt slower and softer somehow.

Then the school club doors opened

…and our children came spilling out with backpacks, water bottles, drawings, unfinished sentences, and reproachful looks for something you didn’t even know you’d done wrong already.

Already asking about snacks, and eager for their allocated YouTube hour before shower and bed.

Walking home, I had a thought that explains why we are so tired all the time.

We are the bridge generation.

We are parenting in a world that never sleeps, while our souls are still tuned to the frequency of a 1990s Sunday afternoon.

We remember houses before constant notifications and everyone becoming reachable at all times. A time when if a boy wanted to call you, he had to use the family landline and pray your dad didn’t answer.

And most importantly, before parenting became something people performed publicly in real time.

And yet here we are, raising children inside the noise of it all, trying to give them the freedom we had while simultaneously feeling pressure to optimise every part of their lives.

The right school.
The right snacks.
The right emotional language.
The right screen-time balance.
The right routines.
The right childhood.

A few days later, I found myself talking to another mum while waiting for pickup. She’s one of those women who seems incredibly organised, calm, and efficient. The kind of person I automatically assume is managing motherhood better than I am because she did things “right.”

Little did I know. But then again, little do any of us really know about what happens inside someone else’s home.

We started talking about the dinner/snacks/breakfast/lunch/dinner hamster wheel, laundry, the endless cycle of tidying something only for another mess to appear somewhere else immediately.

And then she laughed and said:
“Honestly, I feel like all I do is wash things and feed people.”

I cannot explain the relief I felt hearing that.

Not because I want her to struggle, but because for five seconds, my brain stopped treating my exhaustion like a personal failure. Like, I’m the only one who is constantly cranky and tired.

Then she said something that stayed with me all week:
“In our parents’ time, this was a full-time job. People spent their whole day doing this.”

Another wave of relief moved through me. So I’m not the only one who grew up with help.

And she’s right.

We grew up slower partly because life itself was slower, but also because labour was slower, more divided, and more compartmentalised.

Now we do everything at once. LITERALLY.

We answer emails while ordering school photos and scheduling yet another school fair in our calendar. We cook dinner while replying to WhatsApps about whatever. We work while mentally tracking whether there’s enough milk for breakfast tomorrow.

Sometimes I think modern parenthood feels less like living and more like running twenty browser tabs inside your own mind. (I know, we’ve heard this one before, but it’s TRUE.)

And the strange thing is, we carry both pride and exhaustion at the same time.

We’re proud we grew up the way we did. We’re proud we came from the era of one shared family computer, dial-up internet, and someone shouting, “GET OFF THE PHONE, I’M TRYING TO GO ONLINE.”

We’re proud we could disappear for entire afternoons on bikes, at the beach, or at shopping centres with no location tracking and somehow still make it home.

But because we grew up in the slow

We feel the speed of modern life more intensely. And I think that’s why millennial nostalgia hits so hard online.

It’s never really about the Discman we loved. It’s about grief for slowness, silence, space, and unstructured time. For a version of life that didn’t constantly ask us to improve ourselves when it’s not really possible to.

Maybe that’s why those tiny school gate conversations matter more now.

Because underneath all the algorithms, schedules, WhatsApp groups, calendar notifications, and “don’t forget” emails, we’re still just people looking for moments that feel human again.

And lately, I think about this most in the kitchen, while making dinners with vegetable and spice combinations that are apparently meant to boost health and iron.

Because in 1995, dinner was just dinner. And now dinner somehow feels like another performance review.

In conclusion, we’re tired, yes. But we’re also strangely resourceful, elite at adaptation, weirdly good in a crisis, and emotionally overqualified.

A small change

I’ve decided to separate the curated content from the monthly essays to give both formats a little more room to breathe.

The curated content will become a separate ritual landing in your inbox a couple of weeks later: things I’m reading, watching, listening to, saving, thinking about, trying out, and so on. So stay tuned in two weeks!

And for paid subscribers, I’m also experimenting with something more unfiltered. Basically, the conversations that usually happen after the essay is finished.

So below today’s paywall is the first little video in that spirit: a very normal Tuesday that somehow felt like a whole week, and became the visual version of this essay.

If you’re a paid subscriber, the unfiltered bit continues below.

Read more

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I was at the Greek airport, flying back to London with my daughter.

It was 10 pm, and I was a complete zombie. It was past my bedtime, I felt slightly disoriented, and all I wanted was just to get us home.

At the gate, there was a last passport control. One more queue, one more hassle, but fine, almost there. What could go wrong?

Our turn came, and I handed over our passports. I added her birth certificate, almost automatically. I’ve travelled alone with Alex since she was a toddler. This isn’t new. But something in the way the passport officer looked at the documents made me pause. This wasn’t going to be smooth.

Suddenly, the questions started.

About her dad. Where is he? What does he do? Why isn’t he here?

For context, we’ve been divorced for almost six years.

At first, I answered normally and calmly, as you do. But then it escalated.

“Call him.”

I paused.

“I want to speak to him right now.”

It wasn’t a question but a demand. And for a second, everything around me shifted just enough to feel slightly 1950s.

I stayed calm and took out my phone, immediately dialling my ex.

It rang once before both passports were tossed back at me.

“Don’t worry. Move along.”

And just like that, it was over.

But something in me didn’t move on.

Because something about it didn’t make sense.

For the next few minutes, my brain did what it always does. It stepped back and said:

This is the first time this has ever happened. So either this man is projecting something that has nothing to do with me (I don’t know, maybe his own fears, his own story, whatever he’s seen or believes about women leaving with children), or we’re still living in a world that hasn’t quite caught up.

A world where a woman travelling alone with her child can still trigger suspicion. A planet where, even now, there is an assumption that somewhere, there must be a man who needs to be consulted.

And most of us know there isn’t, and there hasn’t been for a long time.

I’ve built my life without that structure.

That moment, standing there, being asked to call a man who is no longer part of my day-to-day life, landed in my body in a way I didn’t expect.

Not because I was afraid, but because it exposed something.

The gap between the life I actually live and the one the world still assumes exists.

The next step was the Ryanair gate, which is its own kind of chaos.

You stand there, slightly on edge, wondering if your bag is about to be selected and forced into that tiny metal box. I was still a bit shaken, hiding it, but definitely boiling inside.

I remember staring at the measuring box and thinking, Does any store even make bags that exact size?

I turned to Alex and asked, “Is my bag at least closed?”

And that’s when I heard a voice behind me say, “Yes.”

I turned around.

There was a man who looked kind, relaxed, and slightly amused. He had obviously witnessed everything. He had the kind of presence that immediately softens something in you.

We exchanged a few words, but nothing significant. But something shifted, and then somehow, he ended up sitting next to us on the flight. The whole way, Alex asleep, and me slowly coming back to myself.

And I remember thinking, this is almost absurd.

One moment, I’m being asked to justify my life. Next, I’m sitting next to someone who just sees me as normal. Just easy, human interaction.

It didn’t erase what happened before, but it balanced it.

Back in London, routine settled in again.

School runs, work, life.

I promised myself I’d go on long walks every day to untangle things. Because there’s a lot to untangle.

On those walks, I started to feel properly present. I finally understood what people mean when they say “come back to the present moment.”

My therapist used to say it all the time, and I used to nod but never really got it. Because the truth is, I can be in the present when everything is calm, but the second something feels off, I’m not in the present anymore.

I’m back there, replaying and analysing it, trying to understand.
I do not really enjoy overthinking; it’s just that I notice things.

I’ve been called difficult before. Not in a loud, confrontational way but just enough times for it to stick. And now I think I understand what people mean.

It’s not that I react dramatically. It’s more that I don’t let things pass as easily as others do.

Most people move on after a tone that feels off, a misplaced comment or a mood shift.

Sadly, I don’t. I pause, register it, and sometimes carry it longer than I’d like.

And maybe that’s why that moment at passport control stayed with me.

Because it wasn’t just about that man, but more about what it revealed.

We talk about independence like it’s a goal to achieve, to celebrate and to post about incessantly.

Freedom! Flexibility! Be your own boss!

And yes, of course, there is truth in all of that.

BUT!

There’s another side that we don’t talk about enough.

Independence means responsibility that doesn’t get shared.

It means a random Tuesday where your account is low just before a payment comes in, your child needs you (for everything, and every second) and there is no one to pass the weight to. Not even briefly.

And when people say, “Well, it was your choice”, okay, they’re not wrong. But they’re not seeing the full picture either.

Because sometimes the alternative was even more isolating, and we very well know this doesn’t just apply to single mums. There are women in relationships and marriages who are still carrying most of the weight without it ever being fully acknowledged.

So no, this isn’t about men versus women. It’s about something more structural than that.

And for the men reading this, many of you are doing it right. This isn’t an accusation, but an observation.

The truth is, I’ve built everything for myself.

And that is, without a doubt, my greatest achievement. But at times, it is also the heaviest thing I carry.

Both can exist at the same time. And they do.

And I’m still choosing it every day. Not because it’s easy or always fulfilling. But simply because it’s true.

And maybe that’s what I’m learning as I get closer to 40.

Not to turn everything into a lesson.

Not to force meaning into every moment.

But to allow two things to exist at once.

Pride, Weight, Independence, and the parts of it that don’t get shared.

David Ghiyam’s weekly podcast. Short and sweet. I usually listen while cooking as a bit of a ritual. The episode before last, “Are you a builder or a destroyer?”, felt very aligned with what I wrote about today.

The One Line A Day Journal. I’ve been writing one line a day in this since the start of 2026. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a 5-year journal where each page is the same calendar date repeated across five years. You write a single line each day, and over time, you start to see patterns, shifts, and little moments layered on top of each other.
This is my first year filling it, and I’m already excited to see how it unfolds year after year.

My daily walks. I mention them in my essay. Eye-openers, lifesavers, glutes and mood lifters.

The Freelance Millennial. My baby project I’ve just launched.
It’s very simple: I sit down over coffee with freelancers, self-employed, entrepreneurs (or anyone building something on their own), and we talk things through. Ideas, overwhelm, structure, money, direction, whatever is coming up. It was inspired by so many casual coffees I’ve had with people around me over the years.
If that sounds like you (or someone you know), I’d love your support:
👉 Instagram: @thefreelancemillennial

Deepak Chopra’s words of wisdom:

If you are here reading this, thank you for making it all the way to the end. Supporting independent publications like these goes a long way toward making the world a better place. Simply sharing, subscribing, liking/commenting, helps more than you might think and sends a small ripple of goodness into the world. Which we honestly need right now.

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If you enjoy the piece you’re about to read, sharing or subscribing helps independent writing like this travel a little further, and sends a small ripple of goodness into the world. Thank you to those who already support.

One morning, we were running so late. You know, the kind of late where you’re already wearing your coat and looking for it at the same time.

I flung open the door, a bit panicked, and that’s when I noticed it.

A blue plastic bag was hanging on the hook of our gate.

For a split second, my brain went somewhere strange. I’ve been reading way too many thrillers lately and seeing way too many police officers in the park and on our street.

Is this a prank?

The fact that this was the first place I went probably says a lot about the times we live in. Our first instinct is often to brace for the worst.

I gathered my courage and unhooked the bag.

I exhaled.

It wasn’t a prank.

It was a bag of vegetables.

Long story short, my neighbour had left some of her extra vegetables there before travelling. She later sent a quick message apologising for dropping them off so early and suggesting they might inspire a stir-fry. Lunch, sorted.

During lunch break, I made the stir-fry. While I was chopping, stirring and frying, my thoughts wandered.

What stayed with me had very little to do with the vegetables.

It was the gesture. The fact that someone, in the middle of their own busy life, had thought of leaving me their vegetables before flying off made me realise something.

Small acts of kindness have started to feel almost surprising, which is probably not a great sign. Because lately, it feels like the world has become a place where we expect the worst from each other.

So I want to admit something slightly uncomfortable.

You know what? I don’t want to cope anymore. I don’t want to exchange memes with my friends about the state of the world and pretend we’re all handling it well while everything seems to be slowly tearing apart.

I don’t want to keep accidentally stumbling across the news on my Instagram feed, wedged between holiday photos and pasta recipes, and then try to package it into something lighter so the day can continue.

And I definitely don’t want to imagine growing old in a country that is, in one way or another, part of the machinery behind it all. With a few extra wrinkles and grey hairs that might have arrived a little later if the world had behaved itself.

Lately, I’ve had a growing suspicion that somewhere along the way, I misplaced a small but important part of myself. Nothing dramatic happened, and it’s not a big movie moment, but the sparkly version of me (the one who laughed easily, got excited about small things, and occasionally behaved like a slightly ridiculous human) seems to have quietly slipped out of the room.

At some point, I seem to have developed what I can only describe as a mild case of resting seriousness.

A friend once told me that her therapist pointed out how her face lights up when she comes back from a good date. When she said that, something clicked. My face hadn’t lit up in a while.

The other night, after drinks with friends, I was removing my makeup in the bathroom mirror when I noticed a slightly tired, serious woman looking back at me. It struck me that I may have forgotten how to have fun.

But then again, how could we not become a little serious?

The internet now occupies a huge part of our daily lives, and it rarely leaves us alone. It tells us what we should eat, what we should never eat again, and often manages to confuse us about something as basic as how to feed ourselves. It also reminds us of wars we didn’t ask to witness and crises we have absolutely no power to solve.

And the result is that many of us are quietly carrying a heavy mental load all the time.

At the same time, the internet has become a strange place. One minute it’s pasta recipes and holiday photos, the next it’s thousands of people dissecting the life of someone they’ve never met. I even saw a clip from Oprah’s podcast that touched on the same idea. How quickly we judge, how easily we turn other people’s lives into content, and how comfortable we’ve become watching it all unfold from a distance.

It is no secret that the world is not okay.

And it is also becoming increasingly clear that our power to change global events is limited. But there is something that is still in our hands, and that is our humanity.

Of course, donations matter, and advocacy matters. But the most immediate place to start might be something much simpler:

Kindness.

We talk a lot about boundaries these days, and rightly so. But somewhere along the way, boundaries sometimes drift into something else entirely.

Extreme individualism.

Tit-for-tat behaviour.

Everyone protecting themselves.

Everyone a little more isolated.

We sit alone on our computers most of the day, often barely dressed properly, meeting people through screens, protecting our time and energy so fiercely that we slowly drift into loneliness.

But humans were never meant to live like that. Boundaries are important, sure, but they’re not meant to become walls.

Humanity begins with the simplest things.

A seat offered on the train.

A kind message from another mum on Mother’s Day.

A neighbour leaving a bag of vegetables on a gate.

A cheerful man on Vinted buying my backpack and sending the sweetest thank-you note.

This past month, I started documenting these moments.

I made a small collection of proof that kindness still exists. There were quite a few, and that made me realise something.

The world might be chaotic, complicated and unfair, but the tiny spaces between us, the everyday interactions, are still places where we can make things better.

And sometimes that’s enough to restore a small piece of the spark.

If you’re still here, keep scrolling for a few things I loved this month.

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Movie
Joy Ride (2023). Chaotic, hilarious, and exactly the kind of film that reminds you laughter still exists.

Series
Amandaland. So funny. It’s the sequel/spin-off from Motherland, and if you’re a parent navigating British schools and the looming mystery of secondary school, it hits a little too close to home.

Book
101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest. Still working my way through it slowly.

French thriller
La Secte. There’s something about reading thrillers in French that makes me irrationally happy. Just sitting down with a book and disappearing into it for a while feels like a small luxury. (There’s an English version too if thrillers are your thing.)

A sandwich I can’t stop making
Prosciutto, good bread, parmesan, olive oil. Simple perfection. I couldn’t resist taking a bite before the photo.

On my reading list (impatiently waiting)
Lady Tremaine. I want to read this so badly, but the paperback only comes out in October, and the hardback feels like something you need a handbag the size of a suitcase to carry around. Why do paperbacks come out so much later?

If you are here reading this, thank you for making it all the way to the end. Supporting independent publications like these goes a long way toward making the world a better place. Simply sharing, subscribing, liking/commenting helps more than you might think and sends a small ripple of goodness into the world. Which we honestly need right now.

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We were strolling through Spitalfields Market on Lunar New Year, the kind of slow East London afternoon where nothing dramatic is happening, but everything feels faintly symbolic. Markets always do that to me. All those people wandering with tote bags and coffees, as if we’re collectively pretending we’re not slightly worried about the future.

I was feeling calm and quietly steady. Maybe it was psychological, because we’ve all been waiting for the year of the horse, haven’t we? It was finally here, and to me, there’s something about a new year, especially one that follows a different calendar, that tricks you into believing the slate has genuinely been wiped clean: a new animal, a new cycle, a new energetic chapter.

Surely this is the one.

And then…

As reliably as gravity, my tween saw something. She spotted:

The Lululemon shop.

If you’ve read me for a while, you know this is the moment where I brace.

In London, this is not a neutral sighting. In a city where you can spend £50 simply by leaving your house, adding a logo into the equation is practically the same as handing over your bank details in advance.

She stopped mid-step and stared at the storefront with the reverence of a Buddhist who had finally reached her temple at the top of a mountain after years of silent pilgrimage.

“There,” she said calmly. “Let’s go in.”

There were six of us. She took us all in like she was leading a guided tour.

Inside, she transformed. Suddenly, she was on a mission. With a focused, composed decisiveness, she began selecting pieces with the precision of a professional stylist. This top with those leggings, layered under that zip hoodie. All XS, coordinated, and apparently absolutely essential.

Then she turned to me, holding the full outfit against herself, and said with complete serenity:

“I’m ready for you to pay, Mum.”

£110.

For fabric that would struggle to clothe a medium-sized houseplant.

I said no, obviously, unaware that what would follow was a calm, articulate, and disturbingly strategic negotiation. She referenced longevity, quality, and the fact that “everyone has one.” She also used the word “investment”.

Meanwhile, my brain was recalculating rent, electricity, council tax, freelance invoices, and the invisible tax of raising a child in a city where branding begins before puberty.

No wonder I’ve been experiencing shortness of breath.

Now, did I buy the Lululemon outfit? That’s a separate negotiation.

But the whole episode left me thinking about something bigger than leggings.

By the way, I’m writing this on a full moon eclipse, which may or may not explain everything.

Later that evening, as if on cue, my phone served me another astrology reel (one of the many that have been haunting me since December) announcing AGAIN that Leos are entering a year of abundance.

Abundance.

The timing was almost theatrical.

Because lately, I’ve noticed how surrounded we are by signs. Not subtle ones, but full ecosystems of reassurance. The Lunar New Year promises renewal, Astrology promises expansion, the Tarot promises clarity, and the evil eye practices promise protection. Meanwhile, the boomers in my life flip their coffee cup upside down and consult ChatGPT to confidently identify travel, money, and a mysterious tall figure in the grounds.

Can you imagine? Even ChatGPT, our robot best friend built on data and logic, will read your coffee cup if you ask it nicely enough.

We’ve digitised even our superstition.

We laugh at all of it.

But we still listen.

Because beneath the humour, beneath the irony, beneath the “I don’t really believe in this but just in case” energy, there’s something very human happening.

We want to feel safe.

We want to believe the year ahead has structure and that time moves in meaningful cycles. We want to be certain that there’s a narrative larger than school WhatsApp groups, brand hierarchies and rising rent.

It’s not really about planets or cards or symbols. It’s about structure. And if I’m honest, I look for that structure in small, ordinary places too.

Around the corner from our flat, there are two Asian supermarkets. One is bright and newly renovated, carefully organised and Instagram-friendly. The other is smaller and slightly chaotic. It’s the kind of shop where the same woman has been behind the counter for years.

I always go to the small one.

Not because it’s cheaper or anything, but because she knows me. She tells me which noodles belong in which broth, and which dumplings need less steaming, and because I have this quiet loyalty to places that survive on regulars.

Every Lunar New Year, I buy a huge box of fortune cookies from her. The oversized kind that feels excessive. The biscuit is terrible, but I’m not buying the biscuit. I’m buying the slip of paper inside.

The tiny sentence that implies movement and suggests something is already unfolding. A framework for hope without demanding belief.

It’s not prophecy, it’s structure.

And perhaps what unsettled me most about Lululemon that day wasn’t the £110. It was the reminder that my child is growing up fluent in consumerism. That she can identify logos before she can calculate compound interest, and that she instinctively understands social capital.

And so yes, I watch astrology reels, and I also understand why they go viral.

It’s simply because modern life is loud, expensive, and constantly asking us to prove ourselves.

Rituals, on the other hand, don’t demand anything. They just say:

Begin again.

They don’t ask you to perform. They don’t require a brand identity or a curated life. They don’t measure you against anyone else’s child, income, wardrobe, or timeline. They simply mark time and invite you to stand still for a moment inside it.

Maybe that’s why I find myself holding both things at once: a nine-year-old fluent in logos and a pocket full of fortune cookie slips. A feed full of abundance predictions and a bank account that prefers caution. A city that sells aspiration by the square metre and a small corner shop that survives on loyalty.

The signs aren’t replacing reality; they’re softening it.

They don’t promise wealth; they promise continuity.

And if I’m being honest, I don’t just observe all of this from a distance.

I cling to it.

I cling to my tarot and angel card decks. I cling to my astrological predictions (a special thank you to Chris Corsini for confidently mapping out my planetary breakthroughs). I cross-reference my Chinese horoscope with my sun, rising, and moon signs as if I’m building a cosmic investment portfolio. I revisit my birth chart when I need reassurance that there is, in fact, a pattern to my personality.

I deliberately wear my evil eye necklace. I sage the flat when something feels off. I repeat small incantations that instantly relax my nervous system simply because they’ve been said, and therefore, in some ancient psychological way, must now be protecting us.

Woo-woo or not, I’m doing it.

Not because I think the universe is running a personalised rewards scheme, but because it actually helps. It gives shape to uncertainty.

Because when freelance invoices are late, and Lululemon is calling, and London feels expensive and loud, these rituals steady me.

They don’t remove reality, but regulate me inside it.

And perhaps that’s the real contrast with Lululemon.

Logos tell you who you should become. Rituals remind you who you already are.

Maybe abundance isn’t a number or a wardrobe or a planetary alignment, finally favouring Leos.

Maybe it’s this quieter thing: knowing your roots, choosing steadiness, saying no when you need to, and still believing that time moves in cycles rather than straight lines.

And if I don’t get filthy rich this year?

At least I’ll have structure, and a drawer full of fortune cookie slips to prove it.

My emergency pasta
On days when work and life collide, this is my go-to lunch: pasta, olive oil, garlic, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, Parmesan, salt and pepper. It takes ten minutes, is very satisfying, and reminds me that feeding yourself well doesn’t have to be complicated.

A podcast episode about the evil eye
I recently listened to an episode of The Greek Podyssey about the evil eye and the rituals people use to remove it. Whether you believe in it or not, it made me think about why humans across cultures keep inventing ways to protect themselves from unseen forces.

And a quote I saved this week - credits to @wordsofwisemind on IG

Thank you for reading, as always. Subscribing, liking, and sharing an independent publication makes a bigger difference than you think, so make sure to click anywhere you can!

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It was finally my daughter’s birthday.

The long-awaited party day had arrived after a full month of late nights obsessing over themes, banners, games, and the very serious politics of which boys and girls were and were not invited. It was here.

I’ll spare you every detail of the party and fast-forward you to the last stretch.
The moment all mums secretly wait for (whether they admit it or not).

The cake.

The final sprint.

The finish line.

The point where you’re already red, sweaty, slightly dissociated, but buzzing with the knowledge that you’re almost done.

I finally pulled the Lola’s Cupcakes cinnamon cake (serves 16) out of its box (the same box that had been taking up my entire fridge for two days) and began mindfully placing nine pastel candles around it, carefully circling the non-negotiable number 9 candle in the middle.

This was it. This was the moment.

Evangelina, our babysitter (now truly part of our little family), was gently herding the kids toward the table, helping them gather round, preparing the scene, so this would be memorable for my very emotional nine-year-old.

I was just about to light the candles when I heard it.

The sentence that had been dripping onto my nervous system like slow torture all afternoon.

“Alex’s muuuum??”

Deep breaths.

“Yes, sweetie. Hi!”

“I wanted to go to the toilet… but something is wrong with it.”

And that’s when the universe said: now.

In my mind, I was already spiralling.
This is it. This is how it happens. I’m about to add “emergency plumber” to the list. On a Saturday, during a children’s party.

I walked toward the bathroom, bracing myself for the worst, and somehow the worst exceeded expectations.

A truly impressive, almost architectural, blockage. A giant poo was fully clogging the system. No ambiguity or room for interpretation. No hope I could flush it away like a problem I cannot face.

The first specific thought that popped into my head was that if I were back in my home country, someone else would have taken care of this.

In London, you are that someone.

Also, there is no spare toilet or “we’ll just use the other bathroom while someone comes to fix it.”

This is the actual bathroom.

Evangelina, who had come to support me, looked at me. I looked at her.

We both paused for half a second, silently assessing the situation, our life choices, and the laws of the universe.

Then I put on a latex glove and went in. Note that the glove was already there.
Which says a lot about this household’s essentials.

And instead of panicking, crying, or completely losing it, we laughed. To tears! The kind of laughter that only happens when you’re so deep in it that there’s no other option.

Survival mode, but make it communal. Village-style.

Fast-forward to a cheeky boy wandering in, asking what was happening. As soon as he got the scoop, chanting started.
Who did it? Who clogged the toilet?

A few kids got genuinely upset, convinced they were being accused. There were tears, agitation, and mild chaos.

And yet,

The cake still got lit, the candles still got blown out, and the moment was still magical.

Somehow, in between a clogged toilet and a room full of sugar-fuelled nine-year-olds, I caught myself thinking: we’re doing okay.

I even got the photo. You know the one?

My self-imposed pressure moment where she HAS to be standing at a very specific angle, at the EXACT second she blows out the candles, so I can add it to my year-to-year collection. The one I’m apparently compiling to make a wall for her when she’s eighteen. (I know.)

That party felt like a perfect snapshot of where we are right now.

I’m realising I’m in a strange era clash with my daughter.

She’s entering her people era. She needs more friends, more connections, more hosting, more voices filling the house. Sleepovers, birthday parties, kids lingering in the hallway, asking for snacks and Wi-Fi passwords.

I, on the other hand, am very much in my peace era. My “no sudden noises, please” era. I like calm evenings, soft lighting, fewer plans, fewer people, and far less stimulation.

Naturally, these two eras are colliding daily.

Somewhere between party planning, emotional regulation, and emergency toilet situations, I noticed how often my nervous system is just always on. Constantly alert and ready. Managing, anticipating, fixing.

Which brings me to the everything shower.

I was about to take one a few days later.

Not a quick rinse or a “let’s pretend this counts” splash. I planned a full ceremonial reset. Hair mask, deep conditioner, body scrub and moisturiser. The kind of shower where you briefly and optimistically believe you’re about to put your entire life back together using hot water, steam, and scented products.

The adult version of hope.

It had been military-timed, carefully planned, and silently negotiated with the universe.

I turned on the tap, took a breath, and stepped in…

And cue the knock knock.

“MOM. SOMEONE’S AT THE DOOR.”

GOD.

Because old habits die hard, I threw on my bathrobe, which was very much supposed to happen after the shower, and rushed to the door, already bracing for another thing to deal with. Mostly, I just didn’t want my child opening it.

It was just our neighbours. Passing by, saying hi.

We started chatting.

Ten, twenty, possibly thirty minutes passed. Who knows. There I was, in my bathrobe, barefoot, skin begging for moisturiser, talking about life, kids, plans, exhaustion, random things. Not trying to look put together, not apologising, and not rushing back to productivity.

By the time we said goodbye, my everything shower was long forgotten. My energy levels were basically zero. But my social battery? Slightly recharged.

It’s a strange paradox: some moments refill your heart while emptying your body.

And this month has been full of those moments.

A long series of small interruptions, emotional adjustments, logistics, repairs, school messages, work deadlines, parenting negotiations, anxiety spirals, and attempts at self-care that get cut short. Moments of calm immediately followed by the next thing.

Somewhere along the way, I realised how often I live in a quiet waiting room.

When this is over, I’ll relax.
When this passes, I’ll feel lighter.
When this settles, I’ll enjoy life again.

Except, flash news, it never really ends. There’s always something. Another message to respond to, another decision to make, another fear to face, something to manage, and some version of yourself to hold together.

And when we live like that, suspended in future relief, we slowly leak pieces of the present.

I saw that clearly one rushed morning after school drop-off, following another long bedtime the night before. My mind was already ten steps ahead, what with logistics, exhaustion, and the million tiny things waiting for me at home, when I tripped on the stairs thirty seconds from my front door and barely caught myself.

It could have been bad, but it wasn’t. I stood there for a second, heart pounding, suddenly very aware of my body again.

When we hold too much future fear, we lose a little bit of the now.

So I made a promise to myself: to start seeing things as fun instead of tiring, and to look at what could go right instead of mentally rehearsing every possible way it could unravel. I’m giving myself permission to enjoy life again, without waiting for the perfect moment of calm that never quite arrives.

Food: Rainbow slaw with a healthy dresssing in constant rotation.
I buy the ready-chopped slaw from M&S and make a very unserious dressing involving olive oil, lemon, Dijon, and maple syrup in entirely unmeasured amounts.

Watch: People We Meet on Vacation. This movie made me realise how chapters and relationships are often continuous. Some stories don’t really end; they just pause until the timing finally makes sense.

Listen: Table Manners with Jessie & Lennie Ware, featuring Harlan Coben!
I’ve loved Harlan Coben since my twenties. His books absolutely fascinate me. I still haven’t managed to watch the TV adaptations because I’m a coward, but the books? Chef’s kiss!
This episode was such a joy: discovering him not as a thriller mastermind, but as a normal, warm human who loves food. Mini spoiler: apparently, every villain carries a small piece of him. Make of that what you will :O

Read: The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia
I’m halfway through, and once I pushed past the first 80 pages, I was fully hooked. Addicted. Properly invested.

Dove & Pandora x Bridgerton ads

For those of us who’ve downgraded Netflix to the ad-supported version (hello, inflation), watching Bridgerton came with an unexpected bonus: those two ads.
What an absolute delight. Here they are:

And last but not least, this month’s wisdom

Thank you for reading.
If you enjoyed this, supporting an independent publication like this one, by sharing it with someone you think would like it, subscribing, or leaving a like/comment, makes a bigger difference than you think.

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Happy New Year, everyone :)

Shall we ease into the first gentle rant of 2026?

It was this morning. A cold January Friday. Between a long week, winter, and the deep desire to stay cosy, getting to school felt like a small act of rebellion - for both of us.
But we made it just before the gates closed, which gave me enough time to grab groceries, make coffee, and sit down at my desk to finally get things done before another packed weekend. And by “desk,” I mean couch.

The moment I sat down, before my first long-awaited sip of coffee, a message from school landed:

The heating has broken down. Please collect your children in an hour.

So much for momentum.

On my way to school, a friend messaged to ask if he could take my daughter home to play with her friend (thoughtful, kind, new). Just a simple bus ride, a short walk, a normal London afternoon.

When I arrived, I pulled her aside. She didn’t hesitate. She wanted to go. She took her backpack and walked off into the city without looking back.

I smiled, impressed, mostly, at how easily she stepped into her own day.

This is what this phase of parenting looks like, apparently. Not drama, not milestones. Just small moments where you realise they don’t need you in quite the same way anymore.

A few weeks earlier

I was on a plane watching rain streak down the window as long queues of aircraft waited to take off. It was the Thursday before Christmas. Everyone was flying somewhere else, temporarily leaving the lives they’d built with their own hands. I took a picture to show you all:

It struck me then that most of us aren’t really “going home.” We’re moving between versions of ourselves.

I grew up in Beirut, a place where people leave, but they come back. Even when lives scatter, the centre holds. There is a shared sense of return.

London doesn’t work like that.

Here, people drift out of your orbit quietly. You keep the WhatsApp threads alive and promise coffee. But you don’t always know whether this is a pause or the last version of that relationship.

That landed with me on the 2nd of January, the day we were back from our holidays.

I was standing halfway up the stairs to my flat, suitcases banging against the walls, arms full of Beirut things (Christmas presents, zaatar, kaak, face creams) when I got the message that someone familiar was moving away. Someone not close in the official sense, but close enough to have become part of our normal.

What stayed with me wasn’t romance or drama. It was how easily certain presences slip into your sense of stability without ever being formally acknowledged. And naturally, I thought of my daughter.

Another small shift in her world. Another person who mattered, now changing shape. She rolls with it, but I notice the pattern.

That might be one of the more unexpected parts of raising a child here. Watching them treat change as normal while you’re still comparing it to how you grew up.

I like clarity. I like things defined. Which makes it mildly inconvenient to realise how much can still matter even when it never had a label.

But maybe I’ve been mistaking unfamiliar for unsafe.

She is growing up in a world where relationships evolve, where people matter for a season, and where closeness doesn’t always come with permanence. A world where getting on a bus at eight without your mum is simply normal.

Maybe that isn’t something to resist, but something to learn.

Watching her get on that bus today, it became clear:

This is my new era of parenting.

Not holding on, but standing still while they move. Not controlling, but trusting. I’m not there yet. Give me a minute.

She’ll come back later, full of stories, and I’ll still be here.

Your monthly curated content

Here are a few recommendations to keep you grounded.

Plan your year (in moderation)
I’m using a Papier planner, and I love it. Enough structure to feel held, not so much that it turns into a second job. They’re on sale right now, so go!

Read something that doesn’t try to fix you
The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer is pure escape. The kind of book that makes you a little bit giddy, like when we were teenagers reading under the covers.

Also, learn something for this new era
I just started Girls Just Wanna Have Funds and am wondering if this is the year I finally understand investing. Not in a hustle way, but in a grown woman taking care of her future way.

A small ritual
Light a candle next to your workspace before you start. Even if it feels silly. It tells your body: we’re here, we’re focused, we’re safe.

And finally, let’s keep some things the same. Here’s one of those quietly beautiful Instagram videos that always seems to say exactly what you didn’t know you needed to hear.

Thank you for being here.
If you made it all the way to the end, I’m really glad you did.
Your reads, replies, and quiet support mean more than you probably realise.

See you next month,

Lynn

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