I made tomorrow’s to-do list and felt instantly less human

Dear Delyara, I don’t mean that dramatically. I mean it specifically. The moment I start writing — call this person, email that one, school form, prescription, bank, fuel, groceries, check homework, wash darks, remember birthday card — I can feel myself shifting from person into administrator. From woman into system. From feeling into sequencing. The list helps. It also costs. Sometimes I look at my own handwriting and think how much of my life now is made of maintenance. Important, loving, necessary maintenance. Still maintenance. And I don’t want that to become the only language I know how to speak by the time I’m sixty.