I'm still up. Again. This is stupid but I need to get it out. Today, a senior manager, let's call him Mark, asked if I could take on three extra weekend projects. My immediate, visceral response was to decline. I mean, my kid is home. My *life* is home. I'm a junior analyst, not exactly high-powered, and frankly, I don't need the extra cash. Not like, dire straits or anything. My partner earns enough for us to live comfortably, for me to be a stay-at-home parent, which is what I’m doing most of the time these days. And it’s fine. It really is. Most of the time. But I paused. And in that pause, this weird cognitive distortion happened. This idea that if I said no, Mark would... what? Think less of me? Judge me? It wasn't even about career progression, not really. It was about this fleeting micro-moment of professional disappointment in his eyes. This almost imperceptible flicker of "oh, she’s not as committed as I thought." And to avoid that, to pre-empt a non-existent slight, I found myself saying yes. Three extra projects. My weekend. Gone. My partner asked me why, truly why, and I just shrugged. Said it was "good for my profile." But it wasn't. I know it wasn't. What is that? This compulsion to always be perceived as capable, even when it means sacrificing my own already sparse personal time, time I *should* be dedicating to my family, to my child? Is it a lingering echo of my pre-parenting self, the one who defined herself by output and external affirmation? Is it some sort of residual professional anxiety, a fear of being perceived as less-than just because my primary role has shifted? I don't understand it. I feel a bizarre blend of resentment and a sort of hollow satisfaction. It’s not a big deal. But it feels like a clue to something bigger, something about who I am now versus who I'm supposed to be. And I just... I don't know what to do with it.