Serendipity

Silence — it’s rare these days. Whether it’s the hum of the outside world or the distractions we choose to fill the void, we do everything we can to drown it out. Music, podcasts, TV shows running in the background — all to escape the stillness that makes us uncomfortable.

But silence isn’t when the world is quietest — it’s when our thoughts are loudest. In its company, we face the echoes of our own anguish. The self-deprecating thoughts we’ve buried begin to surface, screaming for acknowledgment. Silence gives them permission to speak — to remind us of our regrets, our pain, our unresolved selves. That is the true weight of silence.

Distraction has become our favorite game of time. We push away the things we don’t want to face, hoping to delay the inevitable. But everything we suppress eventually comes crashing down. The noise we used to protect ourselves becomes chaos — anxiety, panic, unease. And when it fades, silence returns. This time, it doesn’t whisper. It reminds us of every failure, every misstep, every reason we feel unworthy.

I know I’ve spent all this time demonizing silence — but I also want to humanize it. The anguish it brings comes from no one but ourselves. We’re quick to point at our flaws and call it self-awareness, to label our pain as “part of the process.” But when does that awareness become self-sabotage? Growth isn’t just about confronting what’s broken — it’s about learning to let go. Yet we fear letting go because it means saying goodbye to the version of ourselves that helped us survive.

Lately, I’ve been sitting with this silence more often. Maybe that’s why the pain has been louder. I’ve been confronting pieces of myself I buried long ago — listening, questioning, learning. Every morning and every night, I sit in that silence. Not to relive the anguish, but to ask it softly:
“What’s next?”

This — this is the weight of silence.