I folded three tiny socks and felt the whole week in my chest

Dear Delyara, I was standing by the radiator folding washing when I picked up three tiny socks from my youngest son’s pile. They were still warm from drying, and for some reason that was the moment my whole body gave up pretending it was coping elegantly. Nothing was wrong with the socks. Nothing dramatic had happened in that minute. But I think they represented the exact kind of life I am living now — constant care in miniature. The school forms, the packed lunches, the missing PE kit, the half-finished homework, the bath water, the medicine spoon, the socks. So many little acts of holding everything together that never become stories anybody tells about your life. And maybe that’s why I nearly cried. Because I suddenly felt how much of motherhood is built from tasks small enough to be invisible and heavy enough to change you. I folded the socks, put them in the right drawer, and stood there for a second longer than necessary with my hands on the edge of the radiator. Some days love looks very ordinary. Some days ordinary love feels unbearably large.