I Sat in the Car Longer Than I Needed To

Dear Delyara, I stayed in the car for almost twenty minutes after getting home tonight. The engine was off. The street was quiet. A few houses had their lights on, and for some reason that made me feel even lonelier. I could have gone inside immediately. Nothing was stopping me. But I just sat there with my hands in my lap, staring at the windshield like I was waiting for someone to tell me what kind of life this is supposed to be. I think I was trying to delay the feeling of being alone with myself. Work was normal. No disaster. No argument. No especially bad news. But all day I had this strange feeling that I was slightly disconnected from everything happening around me, like I was acting out a version of myself that knows how to function while the real one watches from somewhere further back. When I finally came inside, I didn’t turn the television on. I didn’t make tea. I didn’t check my phone straight away. I just stood in the kitchen and felt this wave of sadness come over me so suddenly that I had to hold the edge of the counter. It wasn’t dramatic sadness. It was something older. Something heavier. The kind that doesn’t need a fresh reason because it has been living in you for years and just chooses different doors to enter through. Sometimes I wonder how many people sit in parked cars at night trying to gather enough emotional strength to walk into their own home.