I Re-read the Shopping List and Found “Tea” Written Twice

Dear Delyara, I had written it once properly, then clearly added it again later when my mind could no longer trust itself to remember whether tea had already been accounted for. That’s what life feels like sometimes now — not only busy, but mentally duplicated. Rechecking, rewriting, over-remembering because the fear of forgetting has become so constant that the mind starts padding itself with repetition. The list sat there on the counter full of ordinary life: milk, pasta, cat food, school snacks, fruit, detergent, tea, tea. I looked at it and thought how much invisible strain there is in being the memory system for a household while also trying not to become frightened by your own lapses in memory. I crossed one “tea” out. It felt symbolic in a way I didn’t fully like.