Being the only one in the room who looks like you is heavy. Walk in anyway. You’re making the room bigger.

Carrying that is real work, and nobody else in the room is doing it, which is part of why it is hard to explain to them. Saying so honestly matters, because pretending it weighs nothing makes you start doubting what you plainly feel. It is not fragility. It is the extra job that lands on whoever is first.

Take what you need on the days it is too much, and go back when you can. Find one person, in that room or outside it, who does not need any of this explained. Rooms change slowly, mostly because somebody kept arriving until the next person found the door easier.