I’m 37, I Have Five Kids, and I’m Still Figuring Out How to Be a Person

I can walk into a 12-hour CNA shift and take care of a whole group of people who all need something at the exact same time.

I can remember who needs help transferring, who wants their coffee made a very specific way, who refuses to wear the shirt their family brought in, and who is going to swear they have been waiting for two hours when it has been seven minutes.

I have also raised five kids.

Five actual human beings have relied on me to keep them alive, sign papers, find missing shoes, remember appointments, settle arguments, and somehow know where everybody’s charger is.

But ask me if I have eaten anything today, where I put an important document, or what I would like to do with two uninterrupted hours, and suddenly there is nobody home.

I can handle a crisis.

I just don’t always know how to be a regular person when nothing is actively on fire.

I Really Thought I’d Know by Now

When I was younger, I assumed adulthood eventually clicked.

Not in a dramatic way. I wasn’t expecting somebody to show up on my 30th birthday with a binder labeled HOW TO HAVE YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

I just thought certain things would eventually become automatic.

I thought I would know what was for dinner before everybody was already hungry.

I thought I would have a place for important papers instead of putting them somewhere “safe” and never seeing them again.

I thought I would follow a budget, have a routine, drink enough water, and clean one room without accidentally starting four other projects.

I thought I would be better at resting before I got so exhausted that my body basically shut the whole operation down.

I definitely thought I would stop losing my coffee while I was actively drinking it.

Apparently, none of that happens automatically.

You can turn 37 without unlocking a secret adult level.

You are still just yourself, except now more people need things from you and your lower back hurts for reasons nobody can explain.

I Got Really Good at Handling What Was Right in Front of Me

I became a mom young, so most of my adult life has been built around being needed.

There was always something directly in front of me that mattered more than whatever was happening inside me.

A kid needed something.

Work needed something.

The house needed something.

A relationship needed something.

A bill needed to be paid.

A mess needed to be cleaned up.

Some problem needed to be handled before it turned into a bigger and more expensive problem.

So I got good at handling whatever was directly in front of me.

Sometimes very good.

I learned how to keep moving when I was tired.

I learned how to function when my life looked nothing like I wanted it to.

I learned how to clean up my own bad decisions and continue being responsible even when I did not feel particularly responsible.

I learned how to survive mental health problems, addiction, relationships, motherhood, work, and starting over more than once.

What I did not learn was how to stop and ask myself basic questions like:

What do I actually want?

What do I need before I get to the point where every noise in the house makes me want to lose my shit?

What do I enjoy when it is not productive, useful, profitable, or for somebody else?

Who am I when nobody needs me for ten minutes?

I’m still working on that last one.

Usually, I spend the ten minutes looking for my coffee.

Being Needed Is Not the Same as Being Known

There is something almost comfortable about being useful.

When people need you, you know your role.

You know what to do next. You know where you are supposed to be. You know what problem you are there to solve.

Being needed can make you feel important, even while it is draining every ounce of energy out of your body.

It also gives you a very convenient reason to keep putting yourself last.

I kept telling myself I would deal with my own needs when things calmed down.

When the kids got older.

When work was less exhausting.

When the house was under control.

When money was better.

When the relationship felt more stable.

When I finally found the right planner, app, routine, storage system, vitamin, morning schedule, or personality transplant.

The problem is that life does not really calm down.

It just changes what it is yelling about.

Eventually, I had to admit that waiting until nobody needed anything was not a plan.

That day was not coming.

So What Does “Being a Person” Even Mean?

For me, it means learning how to exist as more than a collection of responsibilities.

It means noticing that I am overwhelmed before I am one spoon in the sink away from completely snapping.

It means looking at my bank account even when I already know I’m not going to enjoy the experience.

It means building household systems that do not require me to personally remember every chore, appointment, school paper, grocery item, laundry day, and towel location for six people.

It means admitting that my ADHD brain is probably not going to wake up one morning and become naturally organized because I bought a nicer notebook.

It means saying no without preparing an entire closing argument about why I am allowed to say it.

It means resting before I earn it.

That one still feels suspicious.

I am very comfortable resting after I have reached complete physical and emotional collapse.

Resting while there are still things I could technically be doing feels irresponsible, even though there will literally always be something I could be doing.

I am trying to understand that rest is not a prize you receive after completing every task.

Because nobody completes every task.

The tasks reproduce when we are not looking.

I Keep Trying to Invent a Better Version of Me

For years, I thought the answer was to become a different kind of woman.

A woman who wakes up early without immediately being pissed off.

A woman who meal-preps.

A woman who remembers every appointment and puts laundry away on the same day she washes it.

A woman who enjoys budgeting and owns matching food-storage containers with all the lids still present.

Every new system was going to turn me into her.

I would make a plan, feel extremely confident for about 48 hours, and then my actual life would show up wearing scrubs, asking what was for dinner, and holding three responsibilities I forgot existed.

By Wednesday, the plan was usually dead.

Then I would decide the problem was me.

I was lazy.

I was inconsistent.

I was bad with money.

I was bad at routines.

I was bad at keeping a house.

I was bad at being an adult.

But I don’t think I need to become that imaginary woman anymore.

I think I need to build a life that works better for the person who is actually here.

A working mom with five kids.

A CNA who works 12-hour shifts.

A woman with ADHD, inconsistent energy, emotional baggage, large ideas, and an impressive ability to create seven new projects while trying to finish one.

A person who is capable, even when her kitchen counters are making a very strong argument otherwise.

What I’m Actually Learning at 37

I am learning that progress does not always look impressive.

Sometimes it is making a paycheck plan instead of avoiding the numbers until the money is gone.

Sometimes it is doing a 15-minute reset instead of waiting for the imaginary day when I suddenly feel like deep-cleaning the entire house.

Sometimes it is asking the people I live with to contribute instead of doing everything myself and then being mad that I’m doing everything myself.

Sometimes it is using ChatGPT to hold the pieces of my life in one place because my brain absolutely will not.

Sometimes it is going to bed even though the laundry is still sitting there being judgmental.

Sometimes it is letting one bad day remain one bad day instead of treating it like proof that I will never change.

I am also learning that I am allowed to create things because they matter to me.

Writing.

Content.

This website.

Work that belongs to me.

For a long time, the things I wanted felt optional compared to everything everybody else needed.

I am trying to stop treating my own life like something I will eventually get around to after I finish taking care of everyone else’s.

I Still Don’t Have It Figured Out

I would love to end this by saying I have finally learned how to balance motherhood, work, money, a house, relationships, ADHD, rest, and being an actual person.

I have not.

Recently, I opened my banking app, became immediately irritated, and closed it like the numbers had personally offended me.

There is laundry in my house that has been clean long enough to qualify as furniture.

Morning me continues to make plans that evening me was never consulted about.

I still confuse making a plan with completing the plan.

I still have days when I decide I am going to fix my whole life and then spend four hours researching one tiny part of it.

But I am paying attention now.

Not only to what needs to get done, but to the person who is supposed to be living this life while all of it gets done.

Maybe being a person is not something everybody else learned and I somehow missed.

Maybe nobody has it figured out as much as I assumed they did.

Maybe we keep learning who we are as our lives change, our roles shift, and the survival skills that got us here stop being enough.

And maybe some of us are only getting the chance to ask who we are now because we spent so many years doing whatever we had to do to get here.

I’m 37. I have five kids. I still don’t have my shit figured out.

But I am finally trying to build a life that includes me in it.

For now, that feels like enough.