Only with motherhood did I understand what life is. The abrupt, drastic shift from being yourself — looking out for yourself, selectively choosing whom to live, laugh and learn with — to the arrival of a child changed the entire perception of life I had held until then.
As a millennial, I had not realised how much of my own life I had been quietly performing for others. Motherhood made it loud. It also made it clear: my family does not need a martyred version of me. They need the best version of me.
The greatest challenge in life is to raise your children to be able to love without you one day — and, simultaneously, to make sure your marriage doesn’t fall apart in the process.
The L-List is the small set of tips, rituals and objects that let me perform that role — without forgetting myself along the way.
No one will thank you.
The thanks you receive is everyone around you thriving. We don’t need a thank you, and we need to stop waiting for one. But you — you need to thank yourself. With the small, secret, hidden gems that make my life easier, I do exactly that. I thank myself. I make it lighter for myself.
A secret reminder.
Loneliness arises from lying to yourself — from pretending to live your life for others. Loving them more than anything, but living it for them. And not understanding that they need you to be the best version of yourself: with a little time set aside for the supposedly unnecessary things. Luxury. Beauty. Quiet.
Admitting that simply living your life does not mean loving your life — that is the start of the L-List. That is why you have found me.
Loving and living come together. Both are stitched to loving yourself. We limit ourselves by forgetting to laugh with others about ourselves, by treating luxury as a sin instead of a liberation. Choosing yourself is not vanity. It is the only way to perform the role you are secretly struggling with — the one no one speaks about: the pressure of being mother, caretaker and provider, all at once.
I have always believed in fewer, better things. I prefer cashmere over crowds, a kept book over a busy feed, lavender oil over a lit screen. The L-List is not a trend report. It is the short, honest list of objects and rituals I genuinely cannot live without — the ones no one quite admits they need.
I want to make life easier. Because, for me, the list I am about to share is what helps me cope — at least for a moment. I have learned, over the years, that beauty is not a given and not a pretence. It is how you feel. And a small, considered range of supposedly luxurious things has, quietly, made my every day better.
Let me help you love yourself.
— L