My Tea Went Cold Beside a Half-Written Shopping List

Dear Delyara, It sat there untouched while I tried to remember what we needed. Milk. Bread. Toilet roll. Shampoo. Fruit. Something for packed lunches. Something cheap enough. Something healthy enough. Something everyone will actually eat. By the time I looked at the tea again, it had that flat grey look cold tea gets when comfort arrives too early and gets abandoned in service of practicality. That made me sad. Not because of the tea itself. Because it felt like a perfect symbol of how my own small comforts keep being interrupted by all the things that “matter more.” I drank it anyway. It tasted like compromise.