Kate Didd

There was the getting-into-the-shower kind of morning, the kind where steam kisses skin that has already carried too much and learned to hold even more. Water pooling at my feet like a ritual baptism back into routine. The echo of my own breathing against tiled walls. The quiet after the storm of getting the kids fed, hugged, guided into their worlds. Dishes clinked back into their homes. Coffee gone cold on the counter, forgotten in the motion of responsibility and resolve.

My body knew what to do before my mind caught up. Muscle memory of survival. Of discipline. Of showing up anyway. Gym clothes pulled over skin still warm from the water, like layering armor over a woman who is no longer at war but still trained for it.

And it felt right.

Almost suspiciously right.

As if the universe had clicked a gear into place and whispered, you’re safe here now.

Yet everything, absolutely everything, was different.

Over the weekend I stepped into the modern maze of a dating site, not from desperation but deliberate expansion. A conscious widening of my world. I wanted to hear new voices, new frequencies, new ways of thinking. Higher-quality conversations. Elevated company. Souls who know themselves instead of asking me to explain who I am while they shrink away from their own reflection.

I am bored, yes, but not empty. Bored in the way a phoenix gets tired of standing in ash long after the fire has ended. Bored with being the most emotionally fluent person in rooms full of adults still choking on their own unhealed pasts. At 41, being the smartest one in the room isn’t a flex anymore. It’s a quiet humiliation. A reminder that I have outgrown spaces that once felt like home.

And then there’s this strange emotional stillness that crept in unannounced. A soft numbness. Like a snowfall on old wounds. I can’t feel for anyone the way I once did, except my children. They receive my softness, my sacredness, my devotion. Everyone else exists behind glass. Untouchable. Unreachable. Not because I can’t but because I won’t.

I no longer crave grand gestures. I don’t want fireworks that burn out before morning. I want the steady flame. The man who knows how to carry his own emotional toolbox. The one who doesn’t need my womb to become his home. I don’t want to be adored like a fantasy, I want to be respected like a presence.

So I set boundaries. A 90-day rule. A sacred pause before intimacy. And in doing so, I watched desire turn to impatience, charm unravel into entitlement, sweetness sour into ick. They filtered themselves out gracefully into the void, where they belong.

Out of over 500 matches, only five felt like possibility.

Five.

One percent.

And suddenly, the illusion shattered completely. We romanticize the familiar so easily. Call comfort love. Call history destiny. But maybe the father of my children was never meant to be my forever. Maybe he was a chapter, not the whole damn book. Maybe loving him didn’t mean staying small. Maybe outgrowing him is the bravest thing I’ve ever done.

Or maybe I’m just so deep inside my own evolution that I can’t see the shoreline anymore.

And that’s when the road happened.

The fog rolled in thick, heavy like breath held too long. I found myself driving through winding hills, mist swallowing the horizon, headlights carving thin golden veins through wet air. Trees standing like silent witnesses, their shadows stretching across the pavement like ancestors reaching forward.

My playlist shifted, not the curated one, not the self-empowerment soundtrack but an old one. Familiar. Aching. The songs of a woman who once felt lost in the world. And there, enveloped in fog, tires whispering against asphalt slick with rain, it all began to make sense.

The loneliness.

The growth.

The boredom.

The stillness.

It wasn’t emptiness I was feeling.

It was integration.

The shedding between versions.

The silence between breaths.

The cocoon before flight.

And then it came, that warm, ancient pride. The kind that doesn’t come from achievement but from alignment. A softness blooming in my chest, spreading outward like honey warming over flame. It felt like arms around my shoulders, unseen yet undeniable. A hug from women who came before me. Grandmothers. Mothers. Warriors. Survivors. Matriarchs who broke chains with quiet obedience and louder rebellion.

I could feel them.

Not as ghosts but as guardians.

You’re doing it right, they whispered in the hush of the fog.

You’re building the bridge we never had.

And in that moment, everything aligned. My story. My choices. My discipline. My distance. My devotion. This wasn’t isolation, it was sovereignty. The pause wasn’t punishment, it was preparation.

I am going all in. On the things that matter. On the life that outlives me.

My children are my north star. The house feels calmer now, infused with something gentler. Their movements softer. Their laughter unforced. No yelling. No frantic energy. Just presence. Stability. Safety. I see how their nervous systems mirror mine, and I understand in sacred clarity: the more peaceful I become, the safer they feel.

This is the legacy.

This is the real love story.

Maybe my fascination with men was just the echo of old wounds craving recognition. Maybe I don’t dislike them, maybe I simply refuse to shrink for them ever again. And women too, I tread carefully, protecting my energy like sacred land. My circle remains small but strong. A quiet board of directors guiding me not with control but with reverence.

I don’t know the full plan.

And for the first time, that doesn’t terrify me.

I only know that in 90 days, by Valentine’s Day, I will arrive somewhere new. Somewhere softer. Somewhere rooted in peace I have never experienced. I have surrendered. Fully. Not in defeat but in divine trust.

Every move I make now is a stone laid into the path my children will walk with pride. The woman who changed the bloodline. The one who chose healing over hurt. Consciousness over comfort. Growth over fear.

And today, as I catch my reflection in the quiet of my bathroom mirror, eyes softer, shoulders steadier, breath unguarded, I smile.

Not because everything is perfect.

But because it is true.

And that pride, that deep ancestral warmth, wraps around me like a shawl woven from every woman who dared to become more.

I like her.

I respect her.

I honor her.

She is becoming home.