I tidied the hallway and it was messy again in ten minutes

Dear Delyara, Shoes straight, coats hung, school bags moved, letters stacked, floor clear. For ten whole minutes, the entrance to my house looked like the sort of home I imagine calmer women live in. Then someone came in, dropped a bag, left trainers sideways, put one coat on a chair instead of the hook, and the whole thing collapsed back into reality. I know this sounds small. It isn’t small when you are tired. Because what I felt wasn’t only annoyance. It was futility. That quiet, demoralising feeling that so much of domestic life is building sandcastles against the tide and calling it routine. You do the thing, and the world undoes it before your body has even fully recovered from doing it. I picked the bag up. I hung the coat again. And I felt like a woman arguing with weather.