Reading has become a way of finding myself again
In 2024, I set myself a goal to read twenty four books in a year. I read eighteen. Which, to be honest, I was quite proud of. In 2025, I set the same goal again… and then the year just completely took me out. I was metaphorically gut punched by my sister and fell straight back into another dark, all-consuming period. I told myself I was fine; I think I even believed it half the time but I wasn’t, I really wasn’t.
I was tired of being a punching bag… but still kept standing there taking the hits. And that doesn’t leave much room for anything else. I still showed up. That was the main thing. I did the therapy, I exercised, I ate well (mostly). I got through the day.
But the nights were different.
Once the boys were asleep, I’d binge on absolute crap — just to try and take the edge off whatever I was feeling. Then I’d sit on my phone and scroll until I physically couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
There wasn’t any joy in it. I was there… but I wasn’t really in it.
I look back at photos now and I know I created so many lovely moments for the boys. I know they felt me there with them. But so much of it… I just don’t remember.
In May 2025, something in me just snapped. Another round of vitriol and I was just… done. I stopped seeing that relationship as something that had any place or value in my life anymore. It still makes me sad, of course it does but there are some lines you just don’t cross.
Then in June, we went to Cornwall for a week for a family holiday and for my son’s third birthday. All he wanted to do was go to the beach and build sandcastles. That was it. And for a few days, I actually managed to switch off. No drama, no noise and no constant undercurrent of something hanging over me.
Just… the sea, the boys, and us. I remember looking around and thinking — this is it. This is my life.
My boys.
My husband.
This simple, beautiful thing that I’d somehow been missing while I was completely consumed by something I had no control over… and something that was never really mine to carry in the first place.
I felt lighter. Not healed. Not suddenly fine. Just… lighter.
After that summer, one I don’t think I’ll ever forget, there came another shift – it was time to send my eldest to preschool. Honestly, that first day hit me harder than I expected. After over three years of being at home with them, I felt like I’d failed somehow. Like I should have been able to do it all on my own. Even though I knew this was good for him. For both of us. It probably took me until December to properly get over that feeling. But in that time, something else started to happen. I had space with my youngest. Proper, present time. Just the two of us – it was wonderful, we went for walks, had coffee dates and just played so much.
Still… something felt off. I was lost.
After Christmas, I made another decision. I sent my two year old to preschool as well and on the 9th of January, I dropped them both off.
Six hours.
Alone.
I didn’t really know what I was going to do with that time… but I knew one thing: I needed to find myself again. So I started trying things. I applied to become a tutor. I started thinking about building a business; I had no idea what, just something. Anything that felt like mine. Then a job came up that actually worked around the boys, around preschool, around my mum helping.
And somehow… I got it. I hadn’t properly worked in nearly four years. Not like this. I didn’t even know if I could interview anymore. But I got the job. Someone who didn’t know me – they saw me and I wasn’t ‘mum’, I was Hanifa.
I planned everything. Meals, freezer, routines, weeks. Tried to get ahead of it all. Everyone else seems to manage it… so I thought, I’ll just figure it out. And then I started. And something just… clicked. My brain started working again. That creative, strategic part of me — the part I hadn’t really used in years, it was just there again. And somewhere in all of that…
I picked up a book. It Ends With Us. I’d had it since May 2024.
I hadn’t actually wanted to read it — there had been so much negative drama around the film, and at the time I didn’t have space for anything that felt heavy or complicated. I already had enough of that in my own life.
But it became a film for a reason, right?
And I didn’t realise it at the time… but that’s where it started. Going back to work, using my brain again… and then, without really thinking about it, I picked up a book.