I sat with my shoes still on because taking them off felt like one task too many

Dear Delyara, I came in, put my bag down, and sat on the edge of the bed fully dressed. Shoes on. Coat on. Mind still half at work. Body already dreading the domestic second shift. It’s such a small image, and yet I think it says a lot about adult exhaustion. Sometimes you don’t collapse dramatically. Sometimes you simply stop halfway into becoming the next version of yourself because you have not yet recovered from being the previous one. After five minutes, I got up and took the shoes off. But those five minutes were real. And needed.