waiting it out

i’m in my room this afternoon with the door mostly closed. not to shut the house out, just to make the space feel smaller, quieter. the light coming through the window is that winter light that feels pale but intentional, like the day is still here but moving carefully. it isn’t dark yet. it’s not even close. it’s just afternoon, slow and stretched, the kind that doesn’t ask you to be anywhere else.

music is playing, low enough that i forget it’s there until a lyric floats up and lands somewhere in my chest. it feels more like atmosphere than sound. something to keep me company while my thoughts wander around, picking things up, setting them back down again.

i didn’t sit down with a plan to write. i just felt like it. like my head was a little too full and i needed to empty it somewhere. sometimes that’s the only reason. sometimes that’s enough.

the house is alive in small, ordinary ways. there’s food in the crockpot, taking its time, slowly becoming something warm and grounding. i love that about a crockpot. it doesn’t rush. it doesn’t need supervision. it just trusts that if you give it time, it’ll turn into something good. the dogs are sprawled across the floor like they’ve fully committed to resting today, bodies loose, eyes half open, breathing deep and unbothered. they don’t care what the weather is doing. they don’t care what tomorrow looks like. they are here, and that feels like the only thing that matters.

my husband is on the couch playing a video game. i can hear it down the hallway, the soft clicks of buttons, the occasional laugh or sigh. it’s comforting in a way i don’t know how to explain. like proof that life is still happening gently around me even while i sit here doing nothing in particular.

outside my window, snow is falling. not dramatically. not urgently. just steadily, quietly, like it has nowhere else to be. i keep looking up mid-thought to watch it for a second longer than i mean to. the trees look softer. the road is starting to blur at the edges. everything feels muted, like the world turned the volume down a notch.

there’s a sense of waiting in the air, but not the anxious kind. more like a collective pause. like the world itself is holding its breath for a moment. i find myself moving slower because of it. thinking slower. even breathing slower. it feels like permission.

i think about how much of life is spent rushing toward the next thing without noticing where we are. how rare it is to let an afternoon be an afternoon. no productivity attached. no meaning required. just time passing while you sit inside it.

cars still pass outside every now and then, tires crunching softly. the world hasn’t stopped. it’s just moving around me while i stay still. i like knowing that. it makes this quiet feel intentional instead of empty.

the dogs shift in their sleep. the crockpot bubbles. the music changes songs without asking me if i’m ready. light moves across the wall in a way i don’t notice until it’s already changed. at some point i realize i haven’t checked the clock in a while, and that feels like its own small victory.

i don’t need this to turn into anything profound. i don’t need a takeaway. i just want to remember what this afternoon felt like. warm inside. cold outside. nothing urgent. nothing demanded. just the steady comfort of being where i am while the world keeps going.

it’s later now, closer to evening. the light is starting to shift again. i’m glad i wrote this when i did, right in the middle of the day, right in the middle of nothing happening.

some moments don’t need to be framed as anything more than what they are.

just a quiet afternoon.

just waiting it out.

just being here.