We Are Efficient Together

Dear Delyara, We get things done. Children, schedules, groceries, timing, bills, routines, practical conversations, household management. From the outside, it probably looks like partnership. In many ways, it is. But emotional life is thinning in places no one would notice unless they lived in my body. I miss warmth that is not task-based. I miss being looked at like a person instead of mainly as the other adult keeping the machine moving. I miss softness that arrives before my frustration has had to become visible enough to justify a response. Efficiency has kept us functioning. It has not kept me from feeling alone.