I Stayed Gone

There’s a moment at the movie theater that has always made me laugh.

Not during the movie.

Not during the previews.

Between them.

For just a few seconds, the entire room goes silent.

So many people.

Completely quiet.

And every single time…

I giggle.

I always assumed I was laughing because the silence felt awkward.

Now I wonder if I was laughing because it felt dangerous.

Silence has always made me uncomfortable.

I have spent most of my life making sure I never have to experience it.

When I was little, I fell asleep listening to Adventures in Odyssey tapes. When one side ended, the click would wake me up so I could flip the tape over and start again.

Then it was CDs.

Then television.

Now it’s podcasts.

Music.

Audiobooks.

TikTok while I get ready for work.

Gospel music while I walk Lily.

A podcast in the car.

Music while I clean.

Music while I write.

Music while I paint.

Music while I work out.

If there isn’t already sound, I usually create it.

Sometimes I even have two things playing at once.

I’ve always thought I was someone who loved sound.

Maybe that’s true.

But lately I’ve started wondering if I simply didn’t know how to be alone with myself.

I genuinely love music.

I love the way a song can make an ordinary drive feel cinematic.

I love how a movie can make me laugh until my stomach hurts.

I love books that transport me somewhere else for a little while.

Art is one of God’s greatest gifts.

It reminds us that beauty exists.

It helps us rest.

It stretches our imagination.

It connects us to each other.

None of that is the problem.

The problem wasn’t that I stepped away from myself for a while.

The problem was…

I stayed gone.

For years.

Every quiet moment became an opportunity to fill the space.

Because if the music stopped…

I might hear my own thoughts.

I might hear fears I had been avoiding.

Questions I hadn’t answered.

Grief I hadn’t felt.

Or maybe…

I might hear God.

And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what He—or I—might say.

I’ve spent twenty years encouraging children to name their emotions.

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“It’s okay to be angry.”

“It’s okay to be disappointed.”

We tell children to feel their feelings.

Then we become adults who spend our lives trying not to feel ours.

We scroll.

We binge-watch.

We stay busy.

We fill every empty space.

Not because noise is bad.

But because silence asks things of us.

Silence is where we discover what we’ve been carrying.

It’s where we notice the grief we’ve been outrunning.

The fear we’ve been distracting ourselves from.

The dreams we’ve been too afraid to admit out loud.

Silence has a way of introducing us to ourselves.

And if we’re really quiet…

Maybe to God too.

I read something by Glennon Doyle once about “sinking into your body.”

I knew exactly what she meant.

I’ve experienced it a handful of times.

It’s that moment when your shoulders finally relax.

Your breathing slows.

Your mind stops performing.

And you remember…

“Oh.

Here I am.”

I don’t experience that often.

But I want to.

Because I think I’ve spent so much of my life visiting everyone else’s world that I’ve forgotten how to come home to my own.

Tonight I’m going to sit in silence.

Maybe for five minutes.

Maybe I’ll hate it.

Maybe my mind will race.

Maybe I’ll immediately reach for my phone.

But maybe…

I’ll discover that I’ve been afraid of someone who has been patiently waiting for me all along.

Myself.

And maybe…

God too.

Don’t worry.

I’m not giving up music.

Tomorrow morning I’ll probably still walk Lily with gospel music playing in my headphones.

I’ll still cry when the right song comes on.

I’ll still lose myself in a great novel or a beautifully written television show.

I’ll still be moved by art.

I just don’t want to use beautiful things to keep me from hearing my own beautiful life.

Because maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate the noise.

Maybe it’s to stop being afraid of the quiet.

Maybe the quiet isn’t empty after all.

Maybe it’s where I’ve been waiting for myself.