I Am the Place Everything Lands

Dear Delyara, The backpacks land. The moods land. The forgotten things land. The bad grades, the soccer forms, the lost charger, the missing permission slip, the tears over friendship, the stress over work, the tension at dinner, the awkward silence after a rough day — all of it eventually lands in me. And I absorb it. Redirect it. Sort it. Soothe it. Carry it. Translate it back into something the family can survive. I don’t resent love. I resent being the default surface. Some days I feel less like a woman and more like emotional flooring — the thing everybody stands on without thinking about what it costs the ground to keep holding.