By bedtime I felt like the day had used all my best edges

Dear Delyara, Not broken. Not devastated. Just worn down in the exact places that make me feel most like myself. Patience, warmth, humour, openness, quickness, the little bits of softness that make ordinary life feel human rather than mechanical — by the end of the day, I could feel those things had been spent everywhere. Work. Children. Money. Noise. Email. Driving. Dinner. Small practical problems. The whole usual set. That is what some days do. They don’t destroy you. They just leave you less alive in your own shape by the time you get to bed. I slept. That helped. But I wanted to record the truth of the state before sleep erased the evidence.