Southern Mediterranean Butter Bean Salad

Women are taught to give until there is nothing left of them, then praised for how little they needed in return. Somewhere along the way, many of us began believing that fading quietly into the background so everyone else could shine was one of the purest forms of love.

A few days before visiting Aruba, I heard the phrase “getting your pink back.” The expression comes from flamingos, who can temporarily lose their vibrant coloring while raising their young because so much of their nourishment is poured into sustaining the babies.

Then I arrived in Aruba and saw it firsthand.

The male flamingos stood impossibly tall against turquoise water in shades so vivid they hardly looked real, all coral and confidence and spectacle. Meanwhile, many of the mothers paled in comparison, literally. Softer in color. Less striking at first glance. Their feathers carried visible evidence of where the brightness had gone.

And suddenly the metaphor stopped feeling clever and started feeling painfully familiar.

Women do this every day.

Not only mothers. Women.

We hand everyone else the brightest pieces of ourselves first. The patience. The tenderness. The energy. The magic. We pour ourselves into children, marriages, careers, friendships, aging parents, homes, schedules, school lunches, grocery lists, emotional labor, and the endless invisible work of making life softer for everyone around us.

Then one day we look in the mirror and wonder why we feel faded.

The tragedy is not that women love deeply. The tragedy is how many women were taught that loving deeply required slowly disappearing in the process.

Children do not need mothers who vanish. Partners do not benefit from women who are hollowed out. The world does not become softer because women abandon themselves inside it.

I wish younger women understood this sooner.

You are allowed to remain vibrant while loving people well.

You are allowed to laugh loudly without apologizing for taking up space. You are allowed to buy the flowers, wear the dress, book the trip, pursue the career, take the photograph, protect your peace, and rest before burnout forces you to. You are allowed to have parts of yourself that exist outside of what you provide for everyone else.

Women are not machines built solely for output.

We are not here merely to maintain calendars, refill snack bins, answer emails, soothe emotions, remember birthdays, and keep everyone else emotionally afloat while quietly drowning ourselves.

And yet so many women move through life convinced exhaustion is virtue.

We celebrate women for how much they sacrifice, then act surprised when they no longer recognize themselves.

I think about how many women stop decorating themselves halfway through life. They stop choosing beauty for themselves because practicality becomes the priority. They stop taking up space in photographs. Stop pursuing joy unless it benefits someone else too. Stop introducing themselves as anything beyond who they serve.

The world calls this maturity.

Sometimes I think it is grief.

Because there is something heartbreaking about watching a woman slowly disappear from her own life while everyone applauds how selfless she has become.

That may be the real wisdom hidden inside the flamingos.

The mothers were still beautiful, even faded. Maybe more beautiful once you understood why. Their bodies carried visible proof that they had loved something enough to give it their color.

But what struck me most was this: the fading was temporary.

That part matters.

It is never too late for a woman to get her color back.

Not because motherhood is something to recover from. Not because love diminished her. But because women were never meant to hand every beautiful piece of themselves away and call it devotion.

With age comes clarity, and perhaps the clearest thing of all is this: the people who truly love you were never asking you to disappear.

Not your children.
Not your partner.
Not your friends.

The women who light up a home should not be the very women left dimming inside it.

I think younger mothers especially need someone to say this out loud: your children are watching how you love yourself too. They are learning from the way you speak about your body, your dreams, your exhaustion, your worth, your joy. A daughter raised by a woman who completely disappears may one day believe that is what love requires of her too. A son raised watching women abandon themselves may grow up expecting that kind of sacrifice without realizing the cost.

What if the greatest gift we could give the next generation is not perfection, but wholeness?

What if our daughters saw women who loved fiercely without vanishing?
What if our sons saw women whose joy mattered too?
What if motherhood expanded a woman’s life instead of erasing it?

Sometimes getting your color back looks dramatic. A new chapter. A plane ticket. Reinvention.

More often, it looks ordinary.

Drinking your coffee while it is still hot.
Laughing until you snort at dinner.
Taking the long way home because you need silence.
Buying yourself flowers from the grocery store.
Remembering what makes you feel alive outside of what makes you useful.

Small things. Sacred things.

Because a woman does not become selfish the moment she  remembers she exists too. And maybe that is the wisdom women owe one another most of all:

Love your family deeply.
Love your people generously.
Pour goodness into the lives around you.

Just do not love everyone else so much that you forget you were meant to remain luminous too.