I Couldn’t Remember if I Had Already Taken My Vitamins

Dear Delyara, I stood there with the bottle in my hand, staring at the little pills in my palm, and could not remember if this was the first time today or the second. That frightened me more than it should have. Not because vitamins matter that much. Because I am tired of how often my mind now feels like a room full of opened drawers. School reminders, grocery math, my husband’s schedule, my daughter’s project, my son’s cough, a bill I haven’t opened, a text I haven’t answered, the thing my doctor said last month, the way my jeans felt too tight this morning, everything. I put the pills back. Then I stood there doubting that too. No one sees this kind of exhaustion. They just see a woman holding things together. I see the shaking in the joints.