I ironed the school shirt while everyone else slept

Dear Delyara, I am a mother, and last night at 11:45 I was standing in the dining room ironing a school shirt because it had somehow become urgent after a whole evening of not being urgent enough for anyone else to notice. The kitchen was quiet. The hallway was dark. My feet hurt. And there I was, pressing creases out of a shirt for a child I love deeply and a life that never seems to stop asking for one more thing after I have already emptied myself into the day. What surprised me was not the task. It was the feeling that came with it. I suddenly felt very alone. Not abandoned. Not unloved. Just alone in that specific adult way where everyone benefits from what you remember and very few people witness the remembering while it is happening. The shirt looked neat when I finished. I felt wrinkled in every possible invisible place.