The morning begins before the sun. The goddamn kettle whistles. A child cries from the bedroom. Somewhere in the background, the washing machine hums. The air is thick with the sweet, rising steam of rice cooking, marking the start of another day she never gets to claim for herself. It is in these heavy, chaotic moments that the first quiet cracks begin to appear in her life, long before she ever imagines stepping into a mindfulness journey for mothers.
The air is already thick with the sweet, rising steam of rice cooking, a smell she now associates not with comfort but with routine, with the beginning of another long day lived entirely for others.
She shuffles through the house like a machine built only to serve. She feeds the toddler with one hand while folding uniforms with the other. She picks up shoes that never seem to land where they belong. Every part of the home depends on her.
There is no pause.
Not for breakfast.
Not for a sip of water.
Not for breath.
The rhythm feels endless.
The kids call for her.
Her husband places his coffee mug beside the sink, again, trusting she will rinse it without a word.
Around her, the unspoken expectations of a close-knit Asian household sit heavily on her shoulders.
This is the life she grew up watching her mother and aunties navigate.
Everyone called it a blessing.
But living it now feels like surviving a storm that never breaks.
Somewhere beneath the chores and the checklists, she feels herself slipping away.
Later, while rushing to grab her son’s forgotten backpack, she catches sight of her reflection in the hallway mirror. The sight is a punch to the gut.
Her body has changed. It is softer, heavier, shaped by pregnancy and nights of broken sleep. Instead of reverence for its strength, the world offers casual cruelty disguised as concern.
“You have gained weight, darling.”
“Do you not want to get back in shape?”
She forces a polite smile, but inside their words settle into the familiar voice that tells her,
You let yourself go.
You do not look the way you used to.
Family gatherings cut even deeper.
Women are compared like outfits on display.
Someone’s cousin managed to lose all the baby weight in three months.
Another woman is praised for looking exactly the same as she did before marriage.
She wants to scream.
Instead, she laughs along while her heart shrinks a little more.
Every meal feels like a performance.
Every bite feels judged.
When night finally softens the house, she collapses into bed and scrolls through her phone.
Perfect mothers.
Perfect skin.
Perfect routines.
Perfect lives.
She pauses on fitness pages. Women glowing in bright tights promise transformation and balance.
They seem to live in a world she cannot reach. A world with time, childcare, freedom, and support.
A familiar page appears on her screen. Burpees with Bagels.
She sighs and rolls her eyes.
“Not for people like me.”
“Probably sponsored.”
“They do not have to deal with my life.”
She scrolls past, but her thumb hesitates.
Only for a moment.
Long enough for something inside her to notice.
Then she shuts the thought down.
She does not have time.
Good mothers give everything.
Good wives adjust.
Good daughters in law stay silent.
This is what life is meant to be, she reminds herself.
Pouring endlessly until nothing is left.
But as she folds the last shirt of the day and places her phone aside, the silence feels heavier than usual.
A silence that makes room for a tiny voice she has ignored for years.
A voice softer than a whisper, but impossible to push away:
Where am I in all this?
She does not know it yet,
but this single question
will become the beginning
of everything she has been missing.
