Somewhere between raising my kids and managing my life, I realised I’d packed away a dream I was never meant to leave behind.
Read This Your Way
(Best enjoyed in order — but jump to what you need)
The Forgotten Luggage
There’s always one suitcase you never quite unpack — the one filled with the pieces of your “before.”
Mine held old notebooks, a pair of sandals from Ubud, a recipe scribbled on a napkin from a café I once planned to revisit with family, and stories I wrote when the world still felt wide and full of possibility.
Somewhere between daycare drop-offs and office log-ins, I swapped that suitcase for a nappy bag and convinced myself I didn’t need it anymore.
But dreams aren’t like jeans.
They don’t stop fitting.
They just wait — quietly, patiently — until you’re ready to try them on again.
How It Started
The Weight of Everything Else
Life after my second daughter looked full — full schedule, full heart, full hands, and absolutely no room for me.
Work four days.
Mum mode three days.
Invisible tasks seven days.
And somewhere between spreadsheets and snack boxes, I slowly slipped behind the routines.
I wasn’t unhappy.
I was just crowded.
My days, my thoughts, my identity packed to the brim with everything except the thing that once lit me up.
I had forgotten what dreaming even felt like.
Then one afternoon, while sorting through storage, I found it — the journal.
The same one from the previous story (Emotional Decluttering) — the one that cracked me open.
The one I hadn’t touched since I was 15, back when I wrote my first story and believed — boldly, loudly — that I would grow up to be a writer.
Its pages smelled like ink and courage.
And tucked between faded boarding passes were pieces of me:
travel notes, food stories, and a half-written chapter from the girl who saw stories in everything.
A girl who was told writing wasn’t practical — that “real jobs” looked like IT degrees and analyst roles.
So, she tucked the dream away, neatly, obediently.
And life moved on.
Until the day life stopped long enough for me to notice what I’d left behind.
Sometimes, your forgotten dreams aren’t lost —
they’re simply waiting for you to grow into them.
The Night Everything Shifted
That night, I didn’t scroll or fold laundry. I didn’t fill the silence with chores.
I sat on the floor — journal in my lap, memories in my hands — surrounded by relics of who I had been before adulthood and motherhood, and responsibility rearranged my entire life.
I read my own handwriting and something flickered – Recognition. Possibility.
I felt something I hadn’t felt in years – want.
Not for rest.
Not for escape.
But for me.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about lunches, lessons, or lost socks.
I was thinking about possibilities.
I cried — the good kind, the “something is waking up” kind — and then I made a quiet promise to myself:
I will repack this suitcase.
Slowly. Intentionally.
And this time, I won’t leave myself behind.
Once I started writing again, memories resurfaced like souvenirs.
Not the glossy kind — the weathered ones, smudged with laughter and late nights.
I remembered how food, travel, and words always danced together in my world — how flavours tasted like stories and destinations smelled like freedom.
What I Chose to Keep
- My Curiosity
The part of me that still gets excited about street food,
local markets,
and the magic of a dessert that tastes like a hug from a different country. - My Voice
The one that wrote stories before it wrote grocery lists.
The one that used to scribble characters and flavours into margins.
The one that never really left — it just whispered because life became so loud. - My Chaos
Motherhood didn’t dim my dream.
It gave it new chapters — messy, funny, wildly human ones — that make my storytelling richer now. - My Courage
The courage to finally unpack the suitcase I had abandoned in my teens and repack it with intention in my forties.
To share my world again:
the food, the places, the motherhood moments, and the unfiltered truth that ties them all together.And this — right here — wasn’t just another journal entry or another blog.
It was the first real step toward becoming the writer I once dreamed of being.
The moment I stopped treating my stories like forgotten luggage and started carrying them with intention again.
Miemie and ZenZen still run through the house like uncontained lightning, but somehow, I can meet their storms with steadier footing now.
Even the goldfish seem more relaxed — or maybe that’s just projection.
What I Chose to Leave Behind
- The guilt of wanting more than “mum”
- The belief that passion has an expiry date
- The fear of starting late
- The need to be perfect before beginning
Perfection is heavy.
And I’ve learned to travel light.
The Journey Ahead
Repacking isn’t about starting over —
it’s about travelling lighter with what matters.
These days, my suitcase looks different.
There are crayons next to my camera.
A half-written recipe tucked beside a school note.
Story ideas sharing space with dentist reminders.
A dream sitting comfortably next to motherhood instead of behind it.
I’m not trying to become the old version of me.
I’m travelling with her —
the girl who wrote stories at 15,
the woman who rediscovered them at 43,
and the mum who now knows that chasing dreams doesn’t take you away from your family.
It shows your kids what’s possible.
Rediscovering yourself isn’t about leaving anything behind.
It’s about making room for the dreams that were never meant to stay packed away.
Motherhood didn’t close the suitcase.
It simply handed me new stories to put inside it.
So, Here’s Your Boarding Pass...
If you’ve been waiting for the “right time,” here it is.
This is your sign.
Unpack the suitcase you forgot.
Shake out the dust.
Keep what fits your soul now.
Let go of what no longer belongs to you.
Repack it with joy, curiosity, courage, and the dreams you parked for someday.
Because sometimes, finding yourself again isn’t about a new destination —
it’s about coming home to the person you were always meant to be.
If you skimmed, here’s what matters…
Repacking my dreams wasn’t about going back to who I was — it was about noticing the parts of me I had rushed past for years.
The girl who wrote stories, the woman who tucked them away, and the mum who finally realised she didn’t have to choose between them.
Motherhood didn’t take my dreams away; it simply asked me to carry them differently.
And somewhere between the noise and the nurturing, I learned that making space for myself isn’t a luxury — it’s a return.
Dreams don’t vanish when we set them aside.
They settle quietly in the corners of our lives, waiting for that one moment of stillness when we finally look up and recognise, they were ours all along.
I unfolded the past and found my courage tucked inside.
Now I travel lighter — but carry so much more.
Tell me – what’s one dream you’re ready to unpack again?
Share it in the comments or tag me on or tag me on Instagram @eatplaytravelwithsid — I’d love to cheer you on.
I’ll be right there at the boarding gate, book in hand, dreams tucked beside me, smiling as you take your next step.
The Sidentity Trilogy
Rediscovering Me
Three stories. One truth.
You don’t have to lose yourself to love them — you just have to come home to you.
A three-part journey back to the woman beneath the mum badge. Read the full trilogy:
- Rest: The Art of Doing Nothing
- Release: Emotional Decluttering
-
Rediscover: Repacking My Dreams
