For most of my life I thought being highly empathic was a burden. I felt everything — other people's pain, their moods, their unspoken needs. I walked into rooms and immediately knew who was struggling. I absorbed atmospheres like a sponge. And for decades I mistook that sensitivity for weakness.

I was wrong.

Talk to the universe on the hard nights. Or your guides, or your higher self, or just the dark and quiet of your own room. Say exactly how you feel and what you need. It's not weakness. It's how the conversation stays open.

And then rest. Full moon sleep is real, KPI days are draining, boundary conversations cost something even when they're the right call. You're allowed to be tired.

The only invitation I need is the desire itself. The very things I have been asking for are sitting here, waiting for me to grab them. It's time. If I need a sign — this is it.

The 9 of Pentacles is still there. She's not going anywhere. She's just waiting for you to arrive.

Someone asked me about the blog last week. A colleague. Friendly, genuinely curious, completely well-meaning.

And I went vague.

I mumbled something about affiliate marketing. About skincare. About commission links and building a side income. All true. All completely beside the point. And then I changed the subject.

Because the real answer felt too big. Too vulnerable. Too much like standing up in a room full of people and waiting to be told to sit back down.

Who do you think you are?

I want to talk about something I do a few times a week that may horrify you. It is one of the most effective things I do for my face. And I love it.

Buccal massage. Self-administered. At home. With castor oil and clean hands, and the absolute certainty that what I am feeling when it is intense is exactly what needs to be worked through.

If you have read my cortisol face post, and if you have not, start there; you will know that I carry significant tension in my face. Years of a high-pressure corporate career. Years of absorbing other people's stress as part of the job description. Years of grief and loss, sitting in the body looking for somewhere to go. It goes to the face. It goes to the jaw. It settles into the fascia, and it stays there until you do something about it.

Buccal massage is what I do about it.

At 60, most people are winding down. Retiring. Pulling back. Accepting that the big chapters are behind them and the quiet ones are ahead.

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

I am building a business. Writing a memoir. Moving to a beautiful new apartment. Having the most honest conversations of my life on a blog that did not exist six months ago.

I am just getting started.

Yesterday morning, I went to my first yoga class in over eight years.

I almost did not go. My sensitivity had a list of reasons ready before my alarm had even finished. You’re tired. You do not know anyone there. It is a new place. You do not know what to expect. Just stay in bed. You can go next week. My nervous system was already bracing before I had even sat up.

I want to tell you about ten years of my life. Not for sympathy. Not to vilify anyone. But because I know that somewhere out there, a woman is reading this and recognising herself, and I want her to know she is not alone, and she is not what she's been made to feel she is.

I was in a relationship for ten years. And for most of those ten years, I felt like I was the problem. Not because anyone ever sat me down and said "you are not enough"; it was never that obvious, that clean. It was subtler than that. It was in the looks. The silences. The way certain achievements were met with a quiet dismissal.

I remember one moment clearly: sharing something I was proud of, and watching his face do that particular thing it did, a beat too long before he said anything, a flicker of something that wasn't quite pride. That was it. That was the whole cut. Nothing you could point to afterward and say there, that's the one that did it; and that's exactly what made it so effective.

Grief is not always straightforward. Sometimes you are grieving the person who died. And sometimes you are grieving the relationship you always wanted but never quite had. When it's both at once — that's when it gets complicated.

My mum passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, and on the 8th of May this year it will be eight years since she left. Eight years. And I still catch myself reaching for the phone sometimes. Still smell her perfume when she's nowhere near. Still ask her questions I don't have answers to.

I want to write honestly about her. Not to diminish her — she deserves far better than that — but because I think there are women out there who lost a mother they had a complicated relationship with, and who are carrying a grief that doesn't fit neatly into any of the condolence cards. This is for them. This is for us.