I called back the unknown number instead of making up stories about it all day

Dear Delyara, I let it ring out the first time. Then I spent two hours imagining all sorts of unnecessary things — school issue, hospital appointment, payment problem, some forgotten form, something I had missed. By lunch I was more tired from the not-knowing than I would have been from any ordinary phone call. So I rang back. It was the optician confirming a routine check-up. I laughed after I hung up, but I also felt proud. Because I interrupted something old in myself — that habit of giving fear a long private life before reality gets a turn.