Love Isn’t Performance — It’s Presence

 One mother’s journey through guilt, grief, and the quiet rebuilding of love.

There is a version of motherhood no one warns you about.

The one where joy is eclipsed by appointments, and milestones are measured not by age but by ability.

The one where guilt becomes a second skin, and grief walks beside you through every ordinary day.

The one where you carry two children in your heart — one who needs you constantly, and another who learns to need you quietly.

That is my life.

I have two daughters.

One of them has autism.

The other is growing up in the shadow of a family system, being a carefree bird she is.

And I am the mother — standing in the middle — trying to stretch myself wide enough to hold both of them, even when I am threadbare.

For a long time, I believed love was something I had to prove.

That to be a good mother, I had to be tireless, cheerful, endlessly available.

That I had to overcompensate for the things I couldn’t change — the diagnosis, the future.

This belief became my cage.

I became a performer — saying yes when I wanted to say no, offering help I didn’t have the strength to give, showing up with a smile when my heart was crumbling.

Not just for my daughters, but for the world.

Because I didn’t want anyone to see how much I was hurting.

Because I didn’t want to be seen as ungrateful, or bitter, or — worst of all — *not enough*.

And then guilt crept in like fog.

And because I was drowning in guilt, I began to pull away from my younger daughter — the one who needed me most in the moment.

I didn’t want to feel resentful toward her, so I numbed out.

But she noticed. Children always notice.

That’s when I broke.

And in that breaking, I found something gentler.

I realised : Love isn’t performance. Its presence.

It’s not being everything, always.

It’s not fixing every future or preventing every pain.

It’s showing up. Just as you are. Messy. Tired. Real.

It’s looking your child in the eye — even for five minutes — and saying,

 “I’m here. I love you. I see you.”

It’s whispering to yourself at the end of the day,

 “I wasn’t perfect. But I stayed. And that counts.”

It’s holding your younger daughter in the present, even when the future looms heavy, and letting her feel your warmth without needing a strategy.

It’s realizing you cannot parent from guilt — only from truth.

And that begins with offering compassion to yourself.

I’m still learning.

There are days I slip back into fear, or over-functioning, or silent shame.

But I am learning to pause. To breathe. To ask myself:

“What does love look like *right now* — not in the future, not in performance — but right now, in this breath?”

Sometimes it’s a hand on the shoulder.

Sometimes it’s saying no.

Sometimes it’s letting the dishes wait so I can sit beside my daughter in silence.

And slowly, presence is replacing panic.

This isn’t the motherhood I imagined.

It’s not ease, or freedom, or chai-sipping lightness.

But it is real.

It is raw.

And it is mine.

And in this imperfect, evolving, heart-splitting love,

I am somewhat enough.