That is a terrible thing to realize about your own life.

It is also, it turns out, the beginning of getting it back, because a scale you helped build is a scale you are allowed to walk away from.

So I started small.

I bought a coat I liked without asking whether it was practical.

I signed up for a Tuesday-night pottery class at the community center and did not apologize to anyone for the two hours it cost the household.

I said no to a thing my mother-in-law wanted and did not soften the no with three sentences of guilt.