I wanted to eat without answering anything

Dear Delyara, Not a better meal. Not special food. Just one plate, one chair, one uninterrupted sequence from first bite to last. Instead it was the usual shape of evening: a question about tomorrow, one child needing more water, one asking where something was, my husband bringing up a practical issue halfway through chewing, and me trying not to sound irritated by ordinary family life. Nobody did anything terrible. That made the feeling harder to justify. I stayed at the table and did the normal things. But internally I could feel how much I wanted one meal that belonged to my own nervous system and not to the entire household’s ongoing needs. By the end of it, I felt socially full and somehow still unfed.