I looked at the pile of shoes by the door and felt irrationally angry

Dear Delyara, There were six pairs. All in the way. None where they should have been. School shoes, trainers, my husband’s work boots, one tiny pink sandal from the summer that somehow still hasn’t made it upstairs. Nothing dramatic. But I looked at that pile and felt the exact kind of anger that only happens when objects start standing in for a whole emotional system. The shoes were not the issue. The issue was being the person who notices the shoes, steps around the shoes, moves the shoes, and quietly knows that if she doesn’t, the shoes will still somehow become her problem later. I am tired of noticing first. I think that is one of the least glamorous truths of domestic life. How often resentment begins not with cruelty, but with accumulation.