The Hardest Thing Is The Silence....

You know what no one tells you about relationships—whether they’re friendships, romantic, or just really good work buddies? It’s not the beginning that’s the hardest. It’s not even the end.

It’s the after.

It’s waking up and realizing there’s no message waiting for you. No meme sent at an ungodly hour. No "You won’t believe what just happened!" text waiting to be acknowledged.

It’s the silence where there used to be noise.

The Absence of the Everyday

When you talk to someone every single day, even about the dumbest things—what you had for lunch, the weird thing your coworker did, a random TikTok you saw—it becomes part of your routine. They become part of your world, like breathing.

And then one day, the conversations stop. Maybe gradually, maybe all at once. But suddenly, what was once a daily constant is now a void you don’t know how to fill.

You catch yourself opening your phone to text them, only to remember, Oh right, we don’t do that anymore. You see something funny and think, They’d love this. But you don’t send it. Because that door is closed now.

The Echo Chamber of “What Ifs”

Your mind starts playing games with you. Should I reach out? Are they missing me too? Did I do something wrong? Do they even care?

And maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re also staring at their phone, wondering if they should text you. Or maybe they’ve moved on so fast it makes your head spin.

But the hardest thing? It’s not even about them.

It’s about you, adjusting to a world that no longer includes them the way it used to.

Learning to Live in the Silence

So what do you do with all that space they left behind?

You sit with it. You resist the urge to fill the silence with meaningless noise. You let yourself feel the ache, but you don’t let it consume you.

And then, slowly, you start filling that space with you. New habits, new conversations, new people who actually show up and stay.

One day, you’ll realize you made it through a whole morning without thinking about texting them. And then a whole day. A whole week. And eventually, the silence won’t feel like a void. It’ll just be quiet. And quiet can be peaceful too.

So here’s to moving forward, even when it’s hard.

Because if there’s one thing life teaches us over and over, it’s this: People come, people go. But you?

You are always with yourself.

And that’s a conversation worth having.