I Looked at the Mess and Felt Personally Defeated

Dear Delyara, It wasn’t a disaster. That’s what made it worse. A few things on the table. Shoes in the wrong place. A towel on the chair. Two cups upstairs. School papers where they shouldn’t be. Just enough disorder to say, clearly, that life had happened here and I was apparently expected to be the one who translated that back into calm. I stood there and felt this wave of defeat that had almost nothing to do with the objects themselves. It was the feeling of never getting ahead of it. Of always arriving at the scene after everybody has already left part of themselves behind. I tidied it. I didn’t feel better.