the bitter edge of whatever's in the fridge, it just sits there on my tongue for a beat, a tiny moment before it washes down and something else washes up, this flicker, this surprising thing that just was, and then it's gone again, leaving this strange kind of hum in my chest that's not quite a ghost and not quite a memory, but something in between, a vibration that speaks of what could be, what almost was, what might be again, and it feels like for a split second the person she saw was the one who remembers the sound of her own name, not the one constantly putting out fires or untangling laundry mountains, just me, and then the blur returns, the familiar vacancy that used to twist everything inside, but now it just feels like... a wave passing, and I'm still here, standing on solid ground, even with the faint throb still humming behind my temples, a reminder that the work is always there, but maybe so is the knowing, deep down, that I'm more than just the tasks.