Shared Solitude

I was silent. But even my silence was loud enough to be heard by a handful.

When I sealed my mouth to stop my emotions from pouring out, they understood them through the wrinkles between my eyebrows. When I plastered a smile on my face to hide the tension behind it, they noticed it through my fidgeting fingers and tapping feet. The gestures were never loud, but the replies always were.

I had already been surrounded by a handful of people who loved me in the purest form. Yet, somewhere within me, I was still desperately searching for a love I imagined belonged to my future.

My blind tendency to fall in love took me to so many people, but I returned—not with them, but with fragments of wisdom.

One day, I realised that by constantly chasing the future, I had failed to appreciate those who were already giving me the warmth I needed in the present. And that was the day I truly began to enjoy my solitude once again.

I was not pulled in by fate, but by my choices. I found joy multiplying within myself when my time was dedicated only to me, when my expectations rested only on myself, and when the reason behind my biggest smile was none but me.

It is an astonishing feeling, which many fail to experience, while some fail to love, and a few fail to protect. Some simply admire it; others become addicted to it.

Solitude gave me more than peace. It gave me the power to lift myself up, understand myself better, and recognise the blessings in disguise.

Yet, strangely enough, even my solitude was never entirely mine. Among all those who loved me, there was one who remained there even in the spaces where I was alone. We were there through thick and thin, yet I never felt as though he had intruded upon my private space. Perhaps that's why I can't place myself among those who spend their time alone.

Every hint I threw would be cracked by him. If I smiled, somewhere, somehow, he would be the reason.

He was compelling like a first chapter, profound like a final page, and comforting like a favourite book. But what made him different was not that he was the only one who loved me. He wasn't. He simply loved me in a way that reached places even the purest love around me had never reached.

Those handful loved me in ways I could understand and return. But his love seemed to stretch beyond the boundaries of what I knew how to give back. That was what made it different. That was what made him special.

The only thing that troubled me was that I couldn't show him to the world and say out loud that I, too, had someone whose vision seemed to clear only when it came to me.

I was desperate. Yet, as always, it was him who calmed the storm twirling inside me.

He made sure I never carried my worries alone—the river of tears flowing from my soul unseen, the charm of my wit radiating from me unnoticed. He built strong shoulders for me to cry on, a haven where my chaos could settle, and words for me to revive through.

And for the first time, my blind tendency to fall in love led me to the right one—someone who not only walked beside me, but walked for me.

I made promises only to break them later. He made his to keep them forever.

That's how my silence became a love felt in private.

He opened me to a different world, one where even the morals seemed personalised for me. And in the journey of loving him, I learnt to love myself too, turning my regrets into reminiscences.

I began listening to the voice trembling inside me. Soon, I dived deep into myself and stopped worrying about reaching the shore, because the sea kept me afloat for as long as I wanted.

I have never been silent.

Just low-key.