Cold and yet hot.

Blood-orange cake from a box.

Pouring the last glass of orange juice is always a bittersweet moment.

I remind myself that this is only the first week of this and that is why it feels so hard. We will find a new way.

The audacity. The hubris. The delusion.

I sit in the boardroom alone, listening to the gentle sound of the rain. Rain. Rain. It’s raining. Wet concrete. Damp air.

Zoom calls from the school pick-up line.

There has to be a better way.

“When was the last time I had to use my mouthguard?” I ask him. “When was the last time I couldn’t open my mouth to eat breakfast? That just tells me how bad it was.”

Something has got to go.