I Found a Breadstick in My Coat Pocket at Work

Dear Delyara, I pulled it out while looking for my pass and actually stared at it for a second. A broken breadstick in the pocket of my coat. Evidence that at some point in the day, probably between one urgent thing and another, I had fed myself like someone passing through her own life in transit. Not a meal. Not care. Just enough to keep moving. I slipped it into the bin and felt that familiar quiet shame. Not because of the breadstick itself. Because of what it revealed. How often I still keep myself going in fragments. How neatly self-neglect can hide inside efficiency. How much of womanhood can become one long set of acceptable little substitutions where “good enough for now” quietly replaces proper care for years. I went back to work. The coat felt heavier after that.