I found a sock in my handbag

Dear Delyara, A navy school sock, slightly inside out, with fluff on the heel and no visible reason to be there except that my life has become an endless overlap of other people’s needs and fabric. I pulled it out at the shop while looking for my card and just stared at it. That is the thing about motherhood no one says properly. You stop belonging only to yourself in practical ways. Other people’s lives travel with you. In your bag, your car, your coat pocket, your phone, your body, your thoughts. A spoon, a tissue, a hair clip, a note from school, an apple, a sock. I put it back in the bag because I had no energy to deal with what it represented. I just paid and carried on feeling strangely emotional over cotton.