There's a specific kind of exhaustion I feel most days on my way home. Some of it is from work itself. But most of it is from what's waiting after it. I catch myself hoping, almost every evening, that today will be different. Quieter. Easier. I don't know why I keep expecting that, given how rarely it actually happens. But I do. Then I open the door, and it's the opposite. Complaints before I've even taken my shoes off. Shouting from one room or another. Something got broken,

Every morning, my alarm goes off with a clear job to do: wake my son up for school. Simple task, clear responsibility. My brain knows the drill — routine, punctuality, get moving. My heart has other plans. This is the only part of the day he's fully mine. He sleeps with his mom through the night, in a world I'm not really part of. But in those last two or three minutes, when I go in to wake him, he reaches out without even opening his eyes. Half-asleep, he hugs me tight and s