I guess it depends what time of day the question is asked and what’s going on. When Nick is home at the weekend and we’re out in the park and the kids are running around with massive grins on their faces? Completely and utterly. There are snatches of time that I look at Nick and our smiling kids and just feel an overwhelming sense of this being every single thing that I’ve ever wanted. When I’m verging on burnout, trying to be everything to everyone and do all of the little tasks around the house that make our lives run as smoothly as possible? Maybe not, although organization does give me joy so that is a tricky one. In the middle of one of Chloe’s meltdowns? No, absolutely not. I am painfully unhappy and out of my depth in those moments because I know I have failed in my approach and abilities to be what she needs. I am not the mother I thought I would be. I am not the woman I thought I once was. That is what scares me, because sometimes I don’t know who I am any more. How can something that completes me also make me feel so broken? It doesn’t make sense to me.

My happiness is so linked to my children’s. I once heard ‘you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child’ – well, what if that child seems mostly unhappy when she’s with you? What if she makes you feel the best and worst of you all at once? I love her so very much, with every beat of my heart – I love both my kids. But I feel so lost.

Sitting here on this strange bed, in this hotel room thousands of miles from home, I allow myself to breathe. To be.

Am I happy? Is anyone ever happy all the time? I don’t think so. It’s the whole sunshine and showers thing, right? You have to let it all in to make the rainbows.