THE SILENCE & THE STORM

There comes a point where words collapse under their own weight and silence becomes the only honest language left. I used to think silence was absence, but now I know it’s the echo that follows truth when everything else has been said. In that stillness, I finally heard the sound of my own heart learning how to beat for itself again.

Love taught me that storms aren’t always loud. Sometimes they arrive quietly… a subtle shift in the air, a distance you can feel but can’t yet name. At first, you mistake the trembling for devotion; you call it patience, faith, hope. You stand barefoot in the rain believing that if you just keep loving harder, the sky will change its mind. But skies don’t bargain. They break, they pour, they clear. And somewhere in between the lightning and the calm, you learn to stop pleading for weather that’s already passing.

There’s a mirror that life eventually holds up to every heart. It doesn’t flatter, it doesn’t lie. It simply reflects what is. For a long time, I avoided it, terrified of what I might see… my own enabling, my own silence, the way I mistook endurance for grace. But mirrors have patience. They wait until you’re too tired to keep pretending, and then they show you what love without reciprocity looks like: devotion bleeding through cracks of denial, tenderness bruised by neglect, a light still burning in a room where no one stays.

When I finally looked, I didn’t see failure. I saw a woman who tried, who gave, who believed beyond reason. I saw someone who loved boldly, maybe too boldly, but never falsely. And that realisation was both heartbreak and healing. Because to admit that you were genuine in a world that confuses detachment with strength is to reclaim your power in its rawest form.

The truth is, some people don’t mean to break you; they’re just at war with their own reflection. They touch your light and call it home until it illuminates their shadows, and then they run, blaming you for the brightness. I spent years trying to understand that kind of fear. Now I simply bless it and let it go. Everyone meets their mirror eventually. Some look away; some shatter it; some finally see.

I used to think closure was a conversation, an apology, a reunion of understanding. But real closure is quieter. It happens in the moment you stop editing the past to make someone kinder than they were. It’s when you choose peace over proof. It’s when you stop knocking on doors that only open inward.

What remains after a storm isn’t just wreckage… it’s clarity. The air smells of earth and electricity; the world feels rinsed. There’s grief, yes, but there’s also relief. Relief in knowing that you can survive what you were certain would end you. Relief in remembering that not every goodbye is a tragedy; some are baptisms. The tide pulls back, leaving fragments of who you used to be scattered along the shore, and you realize that healing isn’t about collecting them… it’s about learning which pieces were never truly yours to keep.

I’ve learned that love doesn’t always mean staying. Sometimes the bravest act of love is walking away before you become a stranger to yourself. It’s saying, “I wish you wholeness, but not at the cost of my own.” It’s understanding that loyalty has limits when it begins to silence your joy.

There will always be a part of me that loves what was good… the laughter, the warmth, the way hope once felt like sunlight on skin. But nostalgia is not a contract. You can honour the beauty of a moment without resurrecting the pain that followed it. You can remember softly and still move forward fiercely.

So here I stand, after the storm. The sea inside me has quieted, though now and then a wave still breaks against the memory. That’s alright; even calm waters remember the wind. I’m not waiting for apologies or rewrites. I’m writing new chapters with hands that have finally unclenched. The horizon is wide, the air is clear, and I’m no longer afraid of my own reflection.

If love finds me again, it will meet someone who knows the difference between chaos and connection, between sacrifice and surrender. Someone who no longer chases the tide but walks with it. Someone who can stand in the light without shrinking for anyone.

Because sometimes the greatest act of faith isn’t holding on… it’s believing that what’s meant for you will recognise you without being begged. And when it does, it will stay, not because you pleaded, but because peace feels like home.

Until then, I’ll keep walking forward… barefoot, unguarded, alive… grateful for the lessons, unburdened by the outcome. The storm has passed. The mirror is clean. And the light, at last, belongs wholly to me.