I Didn’t Want to Hear My Own Name Anymore

Dear Delyara, By bedtime, every “Mom” felt like a hand reaching into my chest. Not because my children were doing anything wrong. Because I was done. Done in that invisible way women get done, where the body is still upright and the voice still mostly kind, but the inside has become one long flinch. Mom, where’s my charger? Mom, did you sign this? Mom, can I have water? Mom, can you look? Mom, can you come here? I answered every time. That’s what hurts. I answered and smiled and solved and softened and kept the room moving, and all the while there was this terrible little thought rising in me: I want one hour where nobody calls me by the version of me that belongs to everyone else. I hate that I felt that. I hate it more because I understood it completely.