The empty room is also proof you are still here

The empty room is also proof you are still here.

It is strange, the way a quiet house can feel both lighter and heavier than a crowded one. There is space for your breath, and there is also space for every thought you have been trying to outrun.

But being alone in a room is not the same as being lonely in a room. One is geography. The other is a story you keep telling yourself about who should be sitting across from you, and why they aren't.

If you can, let today be the day you stop rehearsing the absence. You are allowed to sit where you are, with whoever you are, without making it mean anything more than a Tuesday afternoon that you are still awake for.

That is not nothing. That is, in fact, almost everything. ☁️