I wanted dinner without conversation

Dear Delyara, One meal where no one asked me a question while I was chewing. No one wanted me to settle a small sibling argument, or tell them where something was, or make a decision about tomorrow, or respond to a half-finished story from work while mentally checking whether there was enough milk left for breakfast. Yesterday I wanted food without relational output. That’s the blunt truth. Instead, dinner was full of voices and movement and ordinary family life, and I sat there being needed in ten small ways while trying not to let my face show how deeply I was craving silence. I think people underestimate how intimate exhaustion is. It reaches all the way into the appetite.