The Silence I Wasn’t Looking For

I didn’t go looking for silence.

I wouldn’t have known what to look for. 

At first, it felt like a pause.

A sense of needing space, but not knowing from what.

Everything looked fine, but felt crowded.

Even rest didn’t feel restful.

Everything looked fine on the outside. But something kept tugging underneath…

A quiet pull away from noise, even the noise I thought I liked.

So I pulled back a little.

Said less. Filled less. 

Let the conversations drift.

Let the days stretch.

At first it felt aimless.

Like I should be doing something more meaningful. More connected. 

More like the person I thought I was supposed to be.

But slowly, in the quiet, something steadier began to show itself.

Not an insight.

Not a breakthrough.

Just less noise.

And under that, a different kind of presence.

Not trying to change anything.

Not needing a purpose. Just here.

I didn’t expect the stillness to feel this alive.

Not empty…but open. Not disconnected…just quieter than I knew how to recognise.

It doesn’t always feel peaceful. Sometimes it brings things to the surface. 

Old thoughts. Unfinished stories.

But I can meet them now without being swept into them.

And sometimes, there’s just a deep kind of ease

In not needing to do anything about any of it.

This isn’t the silence I imagined.

Its not grand or distant.

Its simple. Uncomplicated. Stripped back.

But it holds something I hadn’t found in all the searching:

A sense that I’m not missing anything.

That what matters isn’t elsewhere.

That maybe, this quiet isn’t a pause in the path

But the place I was trying to reach without knowing it.