I still feel guilty for how relieved I am when nobody needs me for an hour

Dear Delyara, You would think that after enough years of carrying, I would allow myself relief without trial. Not yet. When I get a quiet hour, there is relief first and then sometimes guilt right behind it, as if peace itself needs moral explanation. Why are you so happy to be uninterrupted? What does that say about you? Shouldn’t love make you more endlessly available than this? I know that’s false. Love and depletion can absolutely live in the same person at the same time. Still, the guilt arrives. Not always loudly. Just enough to contaminate the edges of the rest I wanted. That’s one of the things I most want to change in myself.