There was a time when stillness didn’t feel like peace.
It felt like waiting.
Waiting for the next shift in the room.
The next mood.
The next demand I couldn’t predict.
But today, stillness feels different.
It isn’t absence.
It isn’t loneliness.
It isn’t the quiet that comes after something breaks.
It’s chosen.
A place I return to on purpose –
not to disappear,
but to come back to myself.
This year, I’m celebrating my birthday with something I didn’t always know how to allow:
space.
No pressure to perform.
No need to explain.
No urgency to fill the silence with proof that I’m okay.
Just breath.
Water moving.
Light on the reeds.
A moment that asks nothing from me.
I used to think strength was staying busy.
Staying useful.
Staying available.
Now I understand strength can look like this:
resting without guilt.
being quiet without fear.
letting the world continue without holding it up.
Nineteen years in Second Life has taught me something unexpected:
that healing isn’t always dramatic.
Sometimes it’s small.
Sometimes it’s ordinary.
Sometimes it’s simply choosing peace, again and again,
until it starts to feel like home.
Tonight, I’m not chasing anything.
I’m not bracing for anything.
I’m not trying to turn the moment into something bigger.
I’m just here.
And for once, that feels like enough.
Between Stillness & Storm 