وقتی اندوه به سر انگشت ماجرا میرسد

When I was small, maybe six, we had assignments to trace lines and shapes, preparing our hands for the alphabet to come. I’d sit at my little bright green desk, carefully, cautiously, completing page after page. If, by chance, one line slipped—just slightly off from the perfect image I held in my mind—I’d tear the whole page away and start anew. That was my way. An obsessive little child, who left no room for error, who demanded perfection at every turn

Now, I was about to turn twenty-nine, and I found myself living as that little Sheila again. Only this time, I wasn’t tearing pages but days, entire days, over the smallest slip or deviation from my plan. I cried, realizing how I was still that same child—destroying everything because of tiny mistakes, tearing down whole relationships over minor misunderstandings, letting one flaw spoil the whole

I had to write this down, to remember: I am still repeating that six-year-old Sheila, and perhaps now, I should learn to leave the page intact