The School Run After No Sleep

Dear Delyara, This morning I drove my daughter to school after barely sleeping all night. I had woken up three times thinking about money, then again around five because I remembered I had forgotten to reply to an email from work. By the time the alarm went off, I already felt as if the day had started hours earlier without me. I made breakfast, packed lunch, looked for a missing sock, signed a school paper, and tried to speak gently even though my whole body felt tired and irritated. My daughter was talking to me about something that happened in class yesterday, and I was listening, but also not fully listening, because part of my mind was already at work, part of it was on the electricity bill, and part of it was just begging for one quiet hour. When I dropped her at school, she got out of the car and said, “Bye, Mum,” like it was just a normal morning. I smiled and waved like I was just a normal mother having a normal day. But when she walked away, I sat there for a moment holding the steering wheel and felt a kind of sadness I couldn’t explain properly. Nothing dramatic had happened. That’s the truth. And maybe that is exactly why it hurt. Because some days are not terrible. They are just heavy in a quiet way. You carry too much, say too little, keep moving, and nobody can see how close to tears you really are. That was my morning today.