You learn the sound of your own footsteps
as company on empty streets,
the way your shadow stretches longer
when no one else repeats your beat.
Meals become small negotiations
between hunger and the will to try,
and quiet rooms stop feeling silent—
they start to feel like asking why.
There’s no chorus to your mornings,
no witness to your private wars,
just you learning how to open
the same stubborn, heavy doors.
But there’s a kind of strength in absence,
not loud, not proud, not on display—
it’s in the way you still keep moving
even when no one calls your name.
And slowly you begin to notice
what solitude can sometimes do:
it strips the world down to essentials—
and leaves the final truth with you.
You are not made only for breaking,
or for waiting to be seen.
Even alone, you’re still becoming
something steady in between.
Thank-you for reading.
Brenda Marie
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This is beautiful, Brenda—especially how you turn solitude into something not just bearable but quietly powerful. The shift from “empty streets” to “something steady in between” is a gentle, earned kind of grace. It reminds me that presence with ourselves can be just as meaningful as being seen by others.
Thank you so much for this—your words really stayed with me. I love how you put it, that presence with ourselves can hold its own kind of meaning. That “something steady in between” felt hard-won, so it means a lot that it resonated with you. There’s a quiet kind of companionship in simply learning to be with ourselves, and I’m grateful you saw that here.
Thank you Brenda for your kind reply 🌷🤝