It was just after dawn when I dragged myself through the door of the laundromat, my seven-month-old daughter asleep in my arms and a bag of dirty clothes slung over my shoulder. I’d just finished another long night shift at the pharmacy — twelve hours on my feet, smiling at customers I barely saw, counting pills with fingers that shook from fatigue.
I told myself I was lucky to have work. I told myself I was strong. But the truth was simpler and uglier: I was surviving one shift at a time.
The fluorescent lights in the laundromat hummed softly, the air thick with the smell of detergent and warm metal. There was only one other person there — a woman in her fifties, folding towels with the kind of calm that comes from habit. She looked up and smiled at me, then at my baby.Essential oil blends
“What a beautiful little girl,” she said, her voice kind.
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