I cried at work today.
Not because of work.
Because I didn’t want to go home.

It happened somewhere between Outlook and a stale granola bar — probably in my office, maybe technically the break room. Who knows. Time and space get weird when you’re spiraling quietly.

I just sat there, blinking at my screen like I could Ctrl-Z the moment. But I couldn’t. So I cried. Quietly. Strategically. Like someone who knows how to have a breakdown without getting flagged by HR.

Not a meltdown. No big scene.
Just a few silent tears at a desk I don’t care that much about, in a job I mostly tolerate, under lighting that somehow felt less harsh than the one waiting at home.

Because that’s the thing.
Home — the place that’s supposed to be comforting, grounding, yours — just felt heavier than anything I’d faced all day.

There’s a strange kind of grief that hits when you realize you’ve built a life that doesn’t refill you.
You show up. You do the things. You play your part.
But somewhere along the way, the spark got replaced by obligation.

So you stall.
You answer one more email.
You scroll like it’s a job.
You take the long way home, because at least your car doesn’t ask how your day was.

I wrote about staying vs. self-abandonment before — how we sometimes linger in places that quietly hollow us out. That post was the big-picture version.
But this?
This is what it looks like in real time.
Crying in an office chair.
Avoiding your own driveway.
Convincing yourself you’re just tired, not unraveling.

This isn’t a cry for help.
It’s just a quiet truth:
Some days, the strongest thing I do is let the sadness exist without dressing it up in optimism.

I didn’t want to go home today.
And maybe tomorrow I won’t either.
I don’t know where this is going.
But I know something has to change.
Even if it starts here — crying in a break room with better lighting than my life.