But one of the advantages of that early motherhood “Twilight Zone,” of being caught between reality and something else, is that the imagination tends to run wild. I wrote another scene, better than the last. And then I wrote another and another. I made use of the rare occasions when my children slept. I got up at 4:30 a.m. I scribbled notes in the back room at work. Within six months, I had 25,000 words of a novel. More important, I was happier. I was sleeping better, was less distracted, more able to cope. Best of all, I enjoyed spending time with my kids again.

At that point, though, I wasn’t thinking about the long term; I just loved writing for writing’s sake. I loved crafting my characters and hearing their voices in my head. I loved the sense of control and achievement I got when I nailed a scene. It helped me channel my fears and gave my heart the space it needed to expand. I didn’t need it to go anywhere because, this time, creativity wasn’t everything to me. It just helped.

But then, in 2017, at a literary festival in Sydney, I had what I can only call a “moment.” I had booked myself into a writers’ workshop led by an editor at a major publishing house. It was just something fun to do, something to keep me motivated, but at the end of the class the editor expressed interest in my work in progress. She said the story had potential. And just like that, something clicked. I knew it was time to get serious. I left that room on a tremendous high, filled with an indescribable energy.

That night I went home to my husband and posed a question: did he think that perhaps, if we shuffled a few things around, we could make time, as a family, for me to give writing a proper go? Like, as if it were a real thing?

“Sure,” he said. “I think we can do that, if it’s really what you want?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

Three years later, here we are. It is a real thing. The proof is in your hands. And life is still complicated, because it always is, and I’m still the same person, but I now have something I never had before: a degree of balance.

That, and a book.

And those two things seem so miraculous to me that I’m … lost for words.

Well, almost.