I wanted to eat one thing while it was still hot

Dear Delyara, Not a better meal. Not a special evening. Just one plate of food that stayed itself from first bite to last. But the second I sat down, one child needed more water, the other remembered something urgent for tomorrow, the dog started scratching at the back door, and my husband asked whether I had seen a message about next week. By the time I came back to the plate, it wasn’t hot anymore. That shouldn’t matter as much as it does. But it does. Because some days the sadness is not in grand sacrifice. It is in the repeated way your own needs arrive second, thinner, delayed, and somehow you are still expected to call this ordinary and be cheerful while living inside it.