My son asked where his blazer was while I was in the shower

Dear Delyara, There is a special kind of maternal exhaustion in being needed through doors. I had been in the shower for less than four minutes. Just long enough to feel almost human again. Then came the voice from outside the bathroom: “Mum, do you know where my blazer is?” And for one ugly second I wanted to disappear into the tiles. Not because of the blazer. Because even my private moments still have threads hanging out into the rest of the house. I answered him, of course. It was on the banister. It usually is. He found it. Life moved on. But I stood there afterward with shampoo in my hair thinking how difficult it is to feel self-contained when your role in the family stretches into every room, every minute, every half-finished attempt to recover yourself. The shower still helped. But not in the clean way I wanted.