I cleaned the kitchen while replaying a work conversation that had already ended hours ago

Dear Delyara, That’s what my mind does now when it’s tired and hurt at the same time. The body wipes the counter, loads the dishwasher, checks the lunchboxes, and the mind sits in a fluorescent office from six hours earlier, rewriting tone and meaning and the version of me that should have been slightly braver, slightly sharper, slightly less willing to let things pass. By the time I finished the kitchen, I had mentally lived that conversation three more times. No wonder my body feels so used by bedtime. I’m not living one day. I’m living the day and its afterlife.