There was a specific kind of quiet to this week, but it wasn’t the peaceful kind.
The air felt thick with things being said for the first time. A life altered by premature loss, where everything keeps moving, but differently.
A young woman who has put her own life on hold while her mother slowly dies.
A long history of physical depletion quietly surfacing as time moves forward.
A sentence about not wanting to be here, spoken almost conversationally.
Just the steady undercurrent of what some people live with.
Sitting in the stillness after my partner and son left this morning, I realised this was the first moment I’d had to myself all week. I lay back on my bed and gently closed my eyes.
Immediately I saw an image of moving water.
The image spun slowly into view.
As it began to slow, I noticed the water’s deep blue.
It wasn’t stormy.
It was just moving.
I tried to zoom out, but it felt vast.
Too vast.
My breath tightened and I could feel my system searching for the shore.
And when I imagined it — the line where water meets land — I felt relief.
The water wasn’t dangerous.
It was just wide.
But even width needs an edge.
Tonight, the shore will be simple.
Dinner with my partner.
Conversation that isn’t about endings.
Warmth.
And lots of hugs with my son.
The ordinary rhythm of my life.
🖤