What if you had less time than you thought?

What would matter more?

Jan 28, 2026

I had to tell my daughter a hard truth the other day.

I had to tell her that when she leaves home later this year on her Erasmus, we might only have a year left together before I die.

Once she’d picked herself up off the floor I explained I wasn’t actually terminally ill (there may be a reason my daughters have an air of drama about them ;-))

She’s 20 and living at home while at University and that’s not how it should be. Young people should be able to head off into adulthood with a student grant, a kettle and not a notion about how disgusting sharing a shower drain will be.

She has a part time job and so has a warm home, with food provided and a bank account of her own money to spend on whatever she wants. I can tell you, my student life did not involve ski trips, endless music festivals, city trips and a steady supply of Vinted packages through the door! But I’m happy for her. She’s living her best life. All I ask of her in terms of “rent” is to do a few chores every week. And her reluctance for what I consider fair is causing a fair bit of resentment.

So I had to tell her the hard truth.

We only have a year left together.

Statistical that is what happens. Once your child becomes an adult and leaves home, all the subsequent time together in the years ahead will only add up to just one year. One year. That is all I have left with this child that woke me up, broke me in two and poked my emotional energy in ways no human should be able to. It makes me want to crawl into her bed in the middle of the night and hold her until she wakes up screaming to “get off!” and that she hates me and get out and how can I invade her space like this (while she has no issues whatsoever taking whatever she wants from my room as if everything I own and every minute of my day belongs to her). And I will smile because I love her. (And because I want this remaining time to not be dominated by resentment I also bought her her own laundry basket and now no longer do her laundry and so am free to love her even more).

Because time is short.

Last weekend I cleared out my family home in Belfast and walked away for the last time. I will never make a cup of tea in that kitchen again, or sit in the splendour of their garden with my face turned to the sun, or sleep in my childhood bed. A bed I would dream in of the adult life ahead of me. A bedroom I’d return to throughout the adventures of my 20’s. A bedroom I brought a husband to - and one I would weep in when that marriage ended. A bedroom I brought my babies into and nursed them in the shadow of my own childhood selves. A bedroom I kept all my things in again for the five years I helped dad care for my mum after her stroke… a home away from home. A bedroom I would visit after she died and my marriage ended trying to put my life back together while dad wandered around downstairs like a lost soul. A bedroom that saw me rebuild my life, as dad rebuilt his and we went exploring again. A bedroom that became my home away from home again this last year as I cared for him in his last months.

On Sunday I sat on the corner chair that the clearers will take away next week, and remembered all the versions of me that slept in here.

And it all adds up - along with multiple overseas holidays and trips to be in Dublin - as just over a year. How shocking.

And here’s what’s even more shocking. A lot of that time I was under pressure, under water, under present. So much time for women is spent hanging on by our finger nails.

All those years raising my girls I was not always paying attention. Not to the things that mattered, only to the things that needed doing. They were hard years - throw in parent-care to the sandwich and it was very hard. Glennon Doyle calls the kid-raising years brutiful and that sums it up. Beautiful and brutal.

I have a year left with my eldest daughter and I want it to be well spent. We’re currently ‘negotiating’ her contribution to the home while she lives here as an adult. And this is where the brutiful work of boundaries comes in - only when I don’t feel resentful, only when we can engage as adults, only when I step away from the pressure to be present, will that year left be all that I want it to be.

As I walk away from my family home, I am so proud and grateful that my time spent there was mostly good. That I gave it it’s due. Because now it is over. I am 56 next month and hopefully still have a few decades left. But they will always now be without my parents. I hopefully have those decades ahead to spend time laughing and loving and learning from and with my daughters, but when it all adds up it will never be as much as I’d want. And one day, they will walk away from their family home for the last time and I hope, that they will be proud and grateful for that special, precious year we had together over these decades to come.

Relationships don’t just happen. They need work, and attention.

Your life as a woman doesn’t just happen. It needs your time and attention.

And so here is my question to myself and maybe you can ask similar ones to yourself.

What’s my ambition for my relationship with each of my children?

What’s my ambition for my relationship with myself?

What’s really going to be important?

What needs to be fixed, said, put in place, explained, let go of to make it matter the way I want?

So much of our time be spent waiting for the To-Do list to be done until we rest or god forbid, have some fucking fun. But the To-Do is always growing. You will never reach its end. So learn to live amid the To-Do. Try to thrive amid the surviving. Invest in being and becoming amid the doing and the drudgery.

As always I’d love to hear what you think. (If you’re reading this is email just hit the comments button below).

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