I Miss Softness

Dear Delyara, The kind of marriage where your face gets read properly. Where tiredness is noticed before it becomes irritation. Where one person reaches gently toward the other without a practical reason. Where tenderness exists in ordinary weekdays and not only after somebody almost breaks. I think that is what I’m grieving. From the outside, my marriage may look fine enough. Inside, I can feel how much of us has become efficient, coordinated, practical, grown-up, and tired. And while all of those things have their place, none of them are softness. I miss softness the way some people miss whole countries.