For a long time, I feared the quiet. I mistook it for a void—a hollow space where loneliness sat heavy and uninvited, like a guest who refused to leave. But as the world outside grew louder, more frantic, and more demanding, that very silence began to feel less like a threat and more like a recovery.
I have come to realize that there is a profound difference between the loneliness that is imposed upon us and the solitude we claim for ourselves. One is a cage; the other is a cathedral.
I now choose this stillness to fill my days. I choose it because life has become too noisy—cluttered with voices that are not mine and expectations I no longer wish to carry. In the crowded rooms of modern life, we are often forced to perform, to polish our edges, and to speak even when our hearts are weary.
