This weekend was anxious and I did not know why. My insides were squirmy, I was irritable and I did not want to deal with my week as it came.

I couldn’t shake the feeling I had taken on too much. I had started a course I’d wanted to complete since I was at school and the information was so interesting. But it also raised uncomfortable questions for me, both as a mum and a parent.

I am not, understandably, an outdoorsy mum. I like contained spaces and flat ground so that I might cope. I like to know where the end is, where the next path, the next task starts. I am a square peg.

I am not blessed to be able to let my own children to be as free and in control as they deserve. So, when I take them to the park, I hang back, to give them their freedom, so that my fear and instinctive need to control and restrict doesn’t consume them. I tell them to play in ways that they know they can take care of themselves. Want to climb a tree? Only as far as you can get down, etc. I am not made to come and rescue them. It has, to all of our credit, made them fiercely independent. That’s great, because I was never allowed to be such a thing.

But, applying the fears and limitations I cannot hope to escape to a professional setting was, I realised, realistically impossible. I could not be responsible for facilitating the freedom of the play of children that could not be expected to understand my limitations.

Freedom of play is something I as a person, believe in absolutely, because it was not facilitated for me. At least not by my parents, because they were led by fear. My occupational therapist’s summer playscheme, my Learning Support Assistants at school who only ever asked what I needed from them to be able to do what I wanted, they offered me that freedom.

The sad truth is, I am not in a position to offer that freedom to any child other than my own. I felt so small as I labelled my anxiety thus, but I knew it felt honest and true. I felt as though I was letting down the teenage girl who had always wanted a part in this work, who would have been less afraid of the physical work and uneven ground of nature or outdoor settings preferred in playwork.

But Kev gently pointed out that that girl wasn’t just more fearless, she would be more reckless, pushing through inevitable injury or physically dangerous situations. As I untangled myself from this decades-long want of mine, he told how proud he was that I was finally developing the self-awareness to know that this is not right for me now.

So I have withdrawn from the course and I feel lighter. I do not have to mask who I am, nor my struggles. I can put my heart into my children and caring for myself as I clearly still need. A lot of work has gone into bettering and loving myself.

Trying to force my square peg self into a round hole has not allowed me to feel loved, only stretched and mismatched.

I do not have to deny myself anymore. I can only ever be me and I do not need to turn in on myself for not being as I was aged 16 because, my God, who is? Thank goodness.

I am determined to cherish my youngest before she heads off to school full-time next September. I have time. It is mine. It is the gift Kev afforded me when I became a stay at home mum, because that luxury was not available to us when we had Immy Squidge. I will not waste it trying to give it away. I will work out a better fit. This square peg will find a square hole and never need to be more than she is.