I Wanted to Be the One Coming Home

Dear Delyara, I wanted, just once, to walk through the door and smell dinner already made. To be the one dropping the bag, taking off the shoes, asking what’s happened here today, letting somebody else hold the shape of the evening properly. I love my family. This is not a rejection of them. It is a confession of how tired I am of being the one already there — emotionally, practically, domestically — before everybody else arrives. I set the forks down and had that painful little flash of envy for a version of life that is not mine. Then I kept going.