I nearly went back out just so I didn’t have to feel the house yet

Dear Delyara, I came home, put my keys down, and for one strange second considered leaving again. Not to go anywhere meaningful. Just out. I think the house was too honest tonight. Too quiet in the wrong way. Too ready to hold the version of me that wasn’t being held together by errands or movement or noise. There are nights when staying in feels like the hardest form of presence. I didn’t go back out. I stayed. But I understood something in that moment: sometimes it isn’t the world I’m running from. It’s the version of myself waiting at home when the world finally stops interrupting her.