A hundred quiet truths for the woman who answers every call, holds everyone together, and has nothing left for herself. One a day. Something, finally, to hold you.
You cry in the car. You come apart where no one can see it, then wipe your face and walk back in smiling.
You say “I’m fine” so smoothly that no one thinks to look closer. You are the fixer, the reliable one, the one who answers every call while your own calls go unheard.
You aren’t failing. You are a woman who carried, alone, for years, what was never hers to carry. And you are so tired. Of course you are tired.
Not to who you were before you gave it all away. To who you are underneath all of it, the one you set aside to take care of everyone else. She is still in there. This is how she comes home, one small truth at a time, on the nights you can’t sleep and the mornings you almost forget yourself again.
I wrote this for the woman who holds everyone. The one who answers every call, and whose own call goes unheard. I wrote the truths I most needed to hear on the nights I was quietly falling apart behind a face that said I was fine.
Some of these pages will find you before you are ready for them. If one cuts too close today, close the book and breathe. It will still be here tomorrow. You have rushed enough, for enough people, for long enough.
You have spent years being the one who holds everyone. Just for these hundred pages, let something hold you.
With you, Claire
Claire Donovan is a pen name.