#lifeinbetween

I stare in glass, at hollow grace,

A face the world will not embrace.

No stars, no spark, no gentle glow,

Just eyes that scream, “I’ll never show.”

They don’t write songs for eyes like mine,

No metaphors, no sacred shrine.

No one gets lost in this blank sea,

No hearts undone. No poetry.

I’ve seen the girls with sugar lids,

With lashes long like fairytale fibs.

They blink, and men forget to breathe—

I blink, and all the dreams just leave.

So leave it there, don’t twist the end,

No phoenix rise, no hope to lend.

Just tired eyes that watch, unseen—

Not ugly.

Not lovely.

Ihr mit einem einem Asche bestreuten Haupt melde ich mich ohne Teaser aus meiner großen Abwesenheit zurück. Seit meinem Letzten Update zu einem neuen Releease date ist einiges an Zeit vergangen. Dieses Update ist durch @buchwichtelprinz s Antwort auf meine Frage zu ihrem Releasedate inspiriert . In der Logig müsste im Letzten Monat Namens November weiter gekommen sein mit meinen und fertig. Doch ehrlichgesagt struggle ich mometan mit der Einführung einer Schreibroutine und brauche ewig für kurze Chraktertexte weshleb es mich viel Zeit kostet Familienmitgleider zu erstellen und ich brauche auch Zeit meine 4 meiner HCs zu erstellen weshalb, ein Release im Laufe einer Woche unrealistisch ist und wird. Es idt noch zu viel zu tun und ich würde in der Nächsten Woche gerne wieder in die arbeit im Projekt so wie an meiner kleinen Theresa starten für boaf starten damit Vergangenheit und den Charaktertext endlich fertig stellen zu könnnen also habe viel zu tun. Drückt mir die Daumen, das es mir weider gelingt 5 Worte am Tag zu pair zu bringen. Ab dem 21.12 habe ich noch einen zweiten Oc in arbeit für die Liebe @buchwichtelprinzund ihre Story vincet aut mori ich habe für diese Gesichte auch schon einen Character im Kopf also habe ich viel zurchreiben in den nächsten Wochen mal sehen wie gut das gehen wird. Hoffentlich bin ich inbis zum Ende der Umfrage dazu

It was supposed to be an easy drive.

Just under an hour, according to the map. Straight highway, no complicated turns. I left with enough time, not rushed, not early—comfortable in the assumption that things would move as predicted.

About twenty minutes in, traffic slowed.

Not completely. Just enough to disrupt the rhythm. Brake lights ahead blinked in a long red line. The radio kept playing, indifferent to the shift in pace.

I adjusted once, then again. Checked the navigation. An accident ahead. Estimated delay: thirty-two minutes.

I was wearing a parke sweatshirt that morning, something I’d put on without thinking too much about it. It was just what I happened to have on while the minutes stretched, and somehow that detail made the pause easier to accept.

Longer-than-expected drives have a particular kind of quiet. You can’t hurry them. You can only move at the speed allowed. The road becomes less about arrival and more about endurance.

I rolled down the window slightly. The air outside was cooler than I anticipated. Cars inched forward. Someone switched lanes impatiently. Someone else leaned back in their seat as if surrendering to the inevitable.

Time behaves differently when it’s extended. The destination starts to feel abstract. The present moment becomes unavoidable.

At some point, I stopped checking the clock.

There was nothing dramatic about the delay. No crisis, no urgency. Just recalibration. The kind that reminds you how little control you have over the space between here and there.

The sweatshirt stayed on, unnoticed until I pulled at the cuff absentmindedly while waiting. It didn’t change the traffic pattern. It didn’t shorten the distance. It simply remained consistent while the drive rearranged itself.

By the time the road cleared and the car began moving steadily again, something in me had slowed too. The extra time hadn’t been productive. It hadn’t been wasted either.

What I wore on a drive that took longer than expected didn’t define the journey. It just accompanied the stretch of road that refused to match its estimate.

It wasn’t supposed to be a big conversation.

We had put it off for weeks, maybe longer—circling around it in smaller sentences, unfinished thoughts, half-formed plans. That afternoon, we finally sat down and said we should talk about it properly.

The room felt ordinary. Late light through the window, the faint sound of traffic below, cups of coffee already going cold between us. Nothing cinematic. Just two people trying to say something clearly.

I hadn’t dressed for importance. I had a parke sweatshirt on, the kind I reach for without thinking when the day doesn’t seem like it will turn pivotal. It was just something steady on a day that quietly shifted, and I didn’t realize that until much later.

The decision itself wasn’t loud. No raised voices. No dramatic pauses. Just a moment where both of us stopped pretending the options were equal. We named what had already been true for a while.

There’s a strange stillness in mutual clarity. It doesn’t feel like victory or defeat. It feels like alignment—like stepping onto ground that had always been there beneath the noise.

At some point, I noticed how calm my hands felt resting against the sleeves. I wasn’t bracing for impact. I wasn’t trying to soften what we were saying. The conversation moved at its own pace.

Afterward, nothing looked different. The same table. The same light. The same cups left unfinished. But the air felt rearranged.

We stood up. We moved around each other in a slightly new way—careful, aware, not fragile but deliberate. The future had narrowed, but it had also clarified.

I didn’t think about what I was wearing until much later, scrolling through the day in memory. That sweatshirt had witnessed the pause before we spoke, the sentence that tipped everything forward, the silence that followed.

It didn’t carry symbolism. It didn’t represent comfort or protection. It was simply there—unchanged while something else took shape.

Sometimes the things we remember from turning points aren’t dramatic details. They’re small consistencies. A sleeve pushed up at the wrist. The texture of fabric when your hands rest still.

The lights went out without warning.

No dramatic storm. No loud pop from the fuse box. Just a quiet click and then darkness where brightness had been.

For a moment, I didn’t move. The room felt smaller, as if walls had stepped closer. The refrigerator stopped humming. The clock disappeared into shadow. Even the air felt heavier without the low, constant noise of electricity.

I was still wearing a parke sweatshirt from earlier in the evening. I hadn’t changed out of it yet. It was the only layer that didn’t shift when everything else did, and I was suddenly aware of it in a way I hadn’t been before.

Darkness has a way of sharpening small details. The texture of fabric against your wrist. The way your breathing sounds in a quiet room. The outline of furniture you know by memory rather than sight.

I reached for my phone, its screen briefly lighting up the walls. No immediate updates. Just a notification about the outage in the area. Estimated restoration time: unknown.

There’s something humbling about losing light. You realize how much you depend on it for structure. Without it, the evening stops being segmented into tasks and becomes something slower, less defined.

I lit a candle and sat on the edge of the couch. The flame wavered, casting uneven shapes across the ceiling. Outside, a few windows glowed—backup generators or battery lamps. Others remained dark.

The sweatshirt stayed on, unnoticed except when I pulled my sleeves slightly over my hands as the air cooled. It didn’t carry meaning. It wasn’t chosen for the moment. It just remained while the house adjusted to its own quiet.

Power outages don’t last forever. Eventually, the lights returned in a brief, almost embarrassed flicker. The refrigerator buzzed again. The room regained its angles.

But something had changed.

For that stretch of time, stripped of brightness and distraction, I noticed what remained. The simplest things—the weight of fabric, the shape of the room, the steadiness of sitting still.

Clothes that stayed on after the lights went out weren’t dramatic. They didn’t solve the interruption. They just moved with me through it, unchanged while everything else reset.

It was one of those mornings that looked predictable.

The sky was clear, the air mild, the kind of day that didn’t seem to require preparation. I almost left without it. I nearly convinced myself it would be unnecessary—an extra layer to carry for no reason.

But habit won.

I picked up a parke sweatshirt on my way out, more out of routine than foresight. It felt like something I probably wouldn’t need, and I considered leaving it behind twice before closing the door.

The afternoon changed slowly.

The wind picked up first—nothing dramatic, just enough to make sleeves feel shorter. Then the clouds drifted in, dimming the brightness that had made the day feel reliable. Conversations moved outside, then back in again. Plans shifted locations without announcement.

I hadn’t prepared for any of it.

There’s a certain kind of comfort in being wrong in your favor. In expecting ease and getting unpredictability—but having quietly accounted for it anyway.

I pulled the sweatshirt back on as the temperature dipped. The fabric settled against my shoulders in a way that felt less about warmth and more about steadiness. It didn’t make the wind disappear. It didn’t clarify the sky. It just adjusted with the day.

Unexpected need has a way of revealing how much we underestimate change. We plan for what’s obvious. We prepare for what’s extreme. But it’s the subtle shifts—the cooler air, the extended wait, the lingering evening—that require small contingencies.

By the time I headed home, the air had cooled fully. Streetlights came on earlier than I’d expected. I was grateful I hadn’t left the layer behind.

The sweatshirt I didn’t expect to need wasn’t heroic or dramatic. It was just there when the day tilted slightly off its original axis.

It was supposed to arrive before noon.

I’d checked the tracking page more times than I needed to, watching the status sit in that vague in-between: out for delivery. There’s a particular kind of anticipation in that phrase—close enough to imagine the knock, far enough to keep you waiting.

By mid-afternoon, the light in the room had shifted. The morning optimism had thinned into something quieter. I made coffee I didn’t really want, glanced at my phone again, and told myself it didn’t matter.

But it did, a little.

I was wearing a parke sweatshirt that day, something I’d put on in the morning when I still believed the timing would work out neatly. It was just what I happened to be in while waiting stretched longer than expected, and somehow that detail anchored the day.

Waiting changes how you move. You don’t fully settle into anything. You don’t leave the house in case the doorbell rings. Time feels borrowed, suspended between now and what’s supposed to happen next.

The afternoon became quieter. I rearranged a stack of mail. Wiped down the kitchen counter. Checked the window whenever a delivery truck slowed outside. Each false alarm made the apartment feel smaller.

By early evening, the tracking page updated: Delayed. No explanation, just a gentle shift of expectation into tomorrow.

I felt more relieved than disappointed.

The pressure of anticipation dissolved. The day returned to itself, no longer built around an arrival. The sweatshirt stayed on through all of it—through the checking, the pacing, the subtle recalibration.

When the package finally came the next day, the moment felt ordinary. A knock, a signature, a box placed on the table. The waiting had carried more weight than the arrival.

The thing I was wearing when the package arrived late didn’t influence the delay. It didn’t speed anything up. It simply existed through the stretch of time that felt longer than it was.

I didn’t notice it at first.

It was only later, scrolling back through my camera roll, that I saw it—same sleeve, same cuff, same slightly folded collar appearing again and again in the corner of different weekends.

Brunch table. Park bench. Someone’s living room floor. A blurry mirror shot before heading out.

The parke sweatshirt had slipped into the background of my Saturdays and Sundays without announcement. It just kept showing up, quietly consistent while everything else shifted around it.

Weekends have their own rhythm. They start slower, stretch differently. There’s less structure, more spillover. Plans change mid-afternoon. Someone suggests coffee and it turns into dinner.

I wasn’t choosing the sweatshirt for photographs. Most of the pictures weren’t even intentional. They were quick captures—friends mid-laugh, a plate of something we forgot to share properly, light cutting across the room at an unexpected angle.

Somehow, the sweatshirt made it into all of them.

It wasn’t styled or arranged. It wasn’t the focus. But it became part of the visual pattern of those weekends—the thing I reached for before leaving, the layer I tied around my waist when the sun warmed up, the one I pulled back on after the temperature dipped.

Looking at those photos now, I don’t think about the sweatshirt itself. I think about who was sitting across from me. The conversation that felt longer than planned. The small decisions that shaped those days.

Clothes sometimes fade into memory. But sometimes they quietly hold it together, not as symbols, just as witnesses.

The sweatshirt that ended up in every weekend photo didn’t define those moments. It didn’t make them more meaningful. It just happened to be there, over and over again, as if it knew I’d want something familiar in the frame.