The driveway
Groceries in the back, porch light on. You stay in the car a little longer.
The engine is off. The key is still in your hand. The porch light is on. The house is right there, with mail on the counter, dinner maybe started, someone you care about inside.
Groceries wait in the back. The seat has warmed up. The next ten minutes are fully known: coat, shoes, how-was-your-day, what is for dinner.
There is no fight waiting on the other side of the door. Still the pause continues.
After a day of small withdrawals, patience, tone, responsiveness, the version of you that other people need can stay switched on longer than the body has fuel for.
The driveway offers a gap with no audience. No performance required. This is often a transition, a pause before shifting from who you had to be out there to who you can be in here.
When the day has been spent predicting what others need, it can take a beat to locate what you actually feel. Out here, no one asks. An answer does not have to be assembled.
Needing that buffer is not a failure of love for the people inside. It can be what honesty costs on a depleted day.
What if the pause is fine, and the guilt about needing it is what wears you down?