There was a time when silence made me nervous.
If things got quiet, I rushed to explain.
To justify.
To make myself legible before someone else could misunderstand me.
Silence felt like exposure.
So I filled it—with words, with plans, with over-functioning.
Anything to stay ahead of judgment.
But I’m learning that silence isn’t empty.
It’s spacious.
In quiet moments, nothing bad actually happens.
No one disappears.
No truth collapses.
The world keeps moving.
My breath keeps coming.
I stay here.
Silence has become a place where I can rest without being observed.
Where I don’t have to perform coherence or strength.
Where I can simply exist as I am—unfinished, unpolished, enough.
I don’t need to narrate my healing.
I don’t need to defend my boundaries.
I don’t need to explain my pauses.
Some things are allowed to be quiet.
And some versions of me only show up when I let the noise fall away.