‘I had it all, but I didn’t have a life’
And was that the tipping point? The moment I realised I couldn’t do this any more, couldn’t do it to my family any more, and would therefore have to resign from the job I loved? It would make for a convenient story if it was. But in all honesty, it was a slower, subtler thing than that.
[…]
But perhaps it was back this spring, when I took my son to be measured for new shoes: the woman asked what size he took, and to my embarrassment I couldn’t remember. I felt like an imposter. Or perhaps it was the summer morning when our nanny had to peel my howling son off me: he had a fever and wanted his mother, but I had a cabinet minister to interview. I shot out of the door, hot with shame.
[…]
But what got lost in the rush was a life, if a life means having time for the people you love, engaging with the world around you, making a home rather than just running a household.