The weight you cannot see

Ask someone what is exhausting about running a house and they will usually describe the physical part — the washing, the tidying, the endless putting away.

But sit with it a little longer and something else comes out. It isn’t the laundry. It’s knowing the laundry needs doing. It’s remembering that the school jumper has to be dry by Thursday, that the boiler service is overdue, that someone has to be home for the delivery.

That work is invisible, it never stops, and it is almost always carried by one person in the household.

Taking a job off someone’s hands helps for an afternoon. Taking it off their mind is what actually changes the week.