I wanted one evening where nobody asked me where something was

Dear Delyara, The charger. The school shoes. The letter from the dentist. The scissors. The extra bin bags. The clean towels. The blue folder. I don’t know why it got to me so much yesterday, but every time someone called my name from another room to ask where something was, I felt myself getting thinner. Not furious. Just overused in a very maternal, invisible way. There is a kind of household labour that isn’t cleaning or cooking or washing. It is being the map. Being the memory. Being the keeper of where things live. Most of the time I manage it without thinking. Yesterday it made me want to disappear into a hotel room with one suitcase and no one needing me to remember a single object. That wish passed. But it was real.