For years, I was the mother who always said yes. I put everyone else first, even when I was exhausted and had nothing left to give. But after a painful family vacation in Brittany, my daughter finally realized what she had been doing to me. And at 62, I discovered something I should have learned decades earlier: loving your family should never mean losing yourself.

And strangely, that did not make me love her any less.

It made me feel closer to her.

After we finished our coffee, we walked toward the beach.

The wind was cool, and the sky was bright with the kind of pale sunlight that makes the sea look almost silver.

Claire walked beside me, her hands tucked into the pockets of her coat.

For a while, we talked about ordinary things.

The weather.

The little guesthouse.

The restaurant we had passed on the way.

Then we reached the beach.

I stopped.

The waves rolled toward the shore, breaking softly against the sand.

It was the same beach where I had spent so many hours caring for everyone else.

I could almost see the children running near the water, hear the sound of their laughter, and remember the towels scattered across the sand.

But this time, there was no one waiting for me to do anything.