I closed my eyes in the pharmacy queue and nearly cried from the fluorescent lights

Dear Delyara, It sounds dramatic. It wasn’t. It was one of those days where sound, light, waiting, decision-making, and politeness had all piled up too high in me already. Then I ended up in a pharmacy queue under harsh lights, half-listening to someone argue at the counter, holding my basket and my handbag and my own irritation like they were all the same weight. For a few seconds, I closed my eyes. Not to calm down. To reduce how much of the world was entering me at once. That helped more than I wanted it to.