I stayed sitting after the engine stopped

Dear Delyara, I got home tonight, turned the engine off, and stayed in the car without moving. No phone. No music. No reason, really. I think I just needed a space where nothing was asking me to become the next version of myself yet. Not the version who walks inside, notices what needs doing, answers what’s waiting, carries the tone of the evening properly, and somehow still tries to feel like a person inside it all. The car felt like a pause between roles. I’ve been needing more pauses than I know how to create cleanly. So sometimes I take them in strange places.