A Small Mistake

I never thought I'd be confessing this, but here I am, feeling a weight in my chest that won't go away. It was yesterday afternoon when Papa had me do laundry and asked if I would separate the whites from everything else before putting them into the machine. His instructions were clear and firm, just as they always are, and there's something comforting about following his rules, even though he knows I'm an adult, we both understand it’s for my own good, to help me grow and learn responsibility. But yesterday, when the phone rang with a call from work that needed immediate attention, I panicked. Instead of pausing what I was doing as Papa had instructed me to do whenever there's an interruption, I quickly put all the clothes together in the washer without separating them. The guilt hit me hard later when I saw the colors bleeding and ruining some of the whites. I know he won’t be happy about this, but it wasn't meant out of defiance; it was just my anxiety taking over. I feel like a child who failed to follow directions, knowing there will be consequences for my actions. It's such a small thing, yet it’s eating away at me because in the DDLG space, rules and discipline are so important, and breaking them feels like betraying something deeper inside of myself.