And here we are at day three of the blogs where I wanted to show more of me. To open myself up slowly, and hopefully prove that I am not nobody. I am somebody with interests, with passions, with things that once lit me up.

And today, we have cooking.

Well, more accurately, we had cooking.

I don’t tend to be as creative or as willing these days. I’m still trying to work out whether my enthusiasm has gone, or whether I am just tired. No, not tired. Exhausted. But creating beautiful, tasty food was something I truly loved.

I think part of that love came from my grandma. She taught me to bake, and maybe that is where some of the love began. In the quiet lessons of flour, sugar, butter and patience. In watching ordinary ingredients become something warm and sweet. I don’t think I knew it then, but she was teaching me more than baking. She was teaching me that care could be made with your hands and shared on a plate.

And I carried that with me.

I loved the process of it. I loved feeding people. I loved knowing that something I had made with my own hands could bring comfort to someone else.

I would cook teas for friends and drop them off regularly. I even had my own small catering business for a time. My older kids still joke now and say, “What would your final meal be if Mam could make it for us?” And the fact they hold my cooking up there as an immediate memory gives me such a warm feeling. It tells me that, even if I forget parts of myself, they remember them for me.

I would cook traditional Indian curries from scratch, dals, homemade samosas, Italian style pizzas, paellas, homemade cakes, meringues, salads, and the most delicious creamy homemade fudge that I used to sell. It would be gone almost as soon as I put it down.

And I didn’t cook in silence or stillness. I cooked with a young child on my hip, one arm holding them close and the other stirring, chopping, mixing, creating. I don’t even know how I managed it now. Maybe that is motherhood sometimes. Doing the impossible so often that it starts to look ordinary.

My mojo for cooking has gone a little. Maybe more than a little.

Coupled with triggers that still catch me, it isn’t always easy to face the kitchen. Sometimes that room feels less like creativity and more like pressure. Less like passion and more like another place where I am expected to give.

But I wanted to share what I am capable of, even if it is much more sparse than before.

Because the photos still exist. The memories still exist. The proof still exists.

There was a version of me who could turn ingredients into comfort. Who could feed people not just with food, but with care. Who could create something beautiful and place it down in front of someone else.

And maybe she isn’t gone.

Maybe she is just exhausted.

Maybe one day, when life feels softer, she will come back to the kitchen slowly. Not because she has to. Not because people need feeding. Not because another demand is waiting at the oven door.

But because something in her remembers the joy of making something from nothing.

And until then, I can still look at those photos and know this much.

I was never nobody.

I was always somebody who could create.