I’m 38, stay-at-home parent, and man, it’s… weird. Not bad weird, just… quiet. Too quiet sometimes. The kids are getting bigger, obviously. Liam’s in year 4 and Chloe started reception this year. It’s a whole different ballgame compared to when they were little turds, all snot and sticky fingers. Used to be, every Tuesday and Thursday was playgroup. A whole gaggle of us. Mums, mostly, a couple of dads who were doing the SAHP thing too. We were a unit, a little army against the endless parade of toddlers demanding snacks and attention. And now? Crickets. It didn't happen overnight, of course. Nothing ever does, does it? It was a slow bleed, really. First it was just Sarah, whose twins went to a different nursery than ours and she just sort of… drifted. Then Mark, his kid started primary a year before Liam, and he went back to work full-time. That one stung a bit, because Mark was good craic, always had a sarcastic comment ready. He said he’d keep in touch, ‘we’ll definitely grab a pint,’ he said. Haven’t heard from him since before Christmas. Maybe that’s on me too, I dunno. I didn’t push it. Then Liam started school, and the morning drop-offs became this frantic scramble. The chats we used to have, leaning on the buggy rails, sipping lukewarm coffee out of chipped mugs, those just… stopped. Everyone was rushing off to work, or to drop off younger ones at different places. My routine stayed the same, mostly. But everyone else’s shifted. And the friendships, the ones I thought were pretty solid, they were built on that shared experience, weren't they? The shared hell of having a two-year-old. The shared joy of finding a bloody clean nappy. Turns out, once that particular crisis passed, so did the need for each other. I remember this one time, it was a couple of months ago, Chloe had just started reception. I was walking out of the school gates, feeling a bit… floaty, I guess. Like I was suddenly surplus to requirements. And I saw Jo, from our old playgroup. Her kid is in Year 2 now, same school as Liam. She was waiting for her daughter, scrolling on her phone. I thought, oh, I’ll go say hi. Catch up. See how she’s doing. So I walked over, a bit nervous, like I was approaching a stranger, which is mental because we used to literally wipe each other’s kids’ bums. "Hey Jo!" I said, probably a bit too loud. She looked up, and for a second, there was this blank look on her face. Like she didn't recognise me. And then it clicked, and she gave this thin smile. "Oh, hey! How are you?" We had this incredibly awkward conversation about the weather, and how big the kids were getting. She asked about Chloe, I asked about hers. It was all very polite. And then she just… went back to her phone. Like she couldn't wait for the conversation to be over. It hit me then, proper in the gut, that we weren't friends anymore. We were just two women who used to know each other. It’s not like I don’t see other parents at the school gates. There are new ones, younger ones, with their shiny new buggies and their fresh faces. They’re all forming their own little clusters. And I just… stand there. Or I wait by Liam’s classroom door. I’m an anomaly now, an older parent with older kids, but not quite old enough to be a granny. I don’t have a cohort anymore. It’s just me. And I kinda thought, back then, that these women, these mates, would be there for the long haul. That we'd be complaining about teenage tantrums together, or swapping stories about empty nest syndrome. Fucking naive, wasn't I? Sometimes I wonder what I'm meant to do now. My whole routine, my whole social life, was built around those little ones. Around playdates and coffee mornings and shared misery. I spent years pouring my entire self into being a mum, into making sure my kids were happy and stimulated and had friends. And I did a pretty good job, I think. But somewhere along the line, I forgot to keep a bit back for myself. For the me that existed before the snotty noses and the constant demands. It feels… empty. Not sad, not really. Just a bit hollow. Like a house after the furniture’s been moved out. The walls are still there, the rooms are the same, but the warmth, the sound, it’s all gone. I see the other mums, the ones from the younger years, still laughing and chatting at the gates. And I don’t envy them. I don’t want to go back to that chaos. But it makes me feel like I missed a step somewhere. Like everyone else graduated to something new, and I’m still standing in the same old classroom, waiting for a bell that’s not going to ring for me. Maybe I should try and get a part-time job or something. Just to have something else to talk about besides whether Liam ate his bloody carrots. Jesus.