you know that feeling when you're just like going through the motions and then suddenly it hits you like a brick? i was just chopping green onions for some congee right? like 11:47pm almost midnight and i’m making congee for ME cause you know usually it's for everyone else always a big pot for the whole fam and suddenly it's just quiet and the only sound is the knife hitting the board and it's like a weird echo you know cause grandmas not here not shuffling around in the background asking if i'm hungry even though she just saw me eat dinner and it’s just me and this tiny bowl of congee and it’s like a sudden emptiness not sadness exactly just… quiet and it makes you wonder like is this it? this is the adulting everyone talked about? you work your 9 to 5 or more like 8 to 7 then you come home and try to make dinner for the kids make sure they’re bathed and homework is done then you check in on mom and dad make sure grandmas meds are sorted and then you finally get to make YOUR food which is usually like whatever random scraps are left over or in this case a tiny bowl of congee cause you’re too tired to do anything else and you're 35 and you’re supposed to have it all figured out right? like a career and a family and a house and i have all those things technically but it feels like i’m constantly failing at all of them simultaneously like a multi-dimensional failure that just keeps compounding and then you look at this small pot on the stove and there's just enough for one portion and it's like a weird relief almost but also this really intense pang of something else i don't even know what it is like a cognitive dissonance you know? cause you're supposed to WANT the big bustling family kitchen and i do i miss it i miss grandma's voice but also it's nice just for a second to not have to account for seven other people's dietary preferences or listen to arguments about who gets the last piece of whatever and i feel GUILTY even thinking that it's just this constant state of feeling like i'm doing something wrong or feeling something i shouldn't be feeling i don't know it's just a lot