The Wall

There are nights I want to leave the house just to get ice cream or drive around or sit somewhere with the music too loud and let my head empty out. And I can’t. Because the kids are asleep upstairs and I’m the only adult here. That kind of trapped feeling doesn’t get enough airtime. People talk about loneliness like it means too much freedom and too much quiet. No. Sometimes loneliness is being completely pinned down by responsibility with no room to breathe. I’m not free. I’m not even particularly alone in a practical sense. There are toys everywhere. Shoes in the hallway. A million little voices all day long. But the one person who made this life feel shared is gone, and now every hard thing has nowhere to go but through me. So I don’t get ice cream. I don’t take the drive. I don’t get the release. I check locks. I fold tiny shirts. I stare at the ceiling. And I think about how nobody prepares you for the cage part of grief.