“Omg…
sooo glad to hear from you.”
“Everything okay?”
“It is now.”
“Now?
What happened?”
“I sent you a text this morning.”
“I know… I saw it.”
“That was seven hours ago.”
“I was at work. I had meetings. I just got home.”
“Oh.
I thought you were mad at me.
Or that I’d said something wrong.
Or that maybe you were in that accident they showed on the news -
the one with the car that looked like yours.”
“Wait… what?”
“You didn’t respond.”
“I was at work.”
And boom -
there you have it.
Seven silent hours
just became ten different stories.
We are all storytellers.
Quiet hours
rarely stay quiet.
We fill them
with our fears,
our worries,
our insecurities,
the chatter in our heads.
We birth narratives.
And then we
breathe life
into them.
Then we flesh them out.
Round them gently.
Let them grow.
Hours later,
we are no longer responding
to a text,
but to stories
that have already lived
a lifetime
inside our heads.
That is how a pause
becomes an intricate pattern.
Different rhythms.
Different wiring.
Different seasons.
Sometimes one of us
feels lonely -
and every delay feels amplified.
Sometimes the other
is building,
healing,
writing -
and the world narrows
to what is right in front of them.
The same friendship
can feel warm and fuzzy
or cold and distant
depending on where
each of us is standing.
Friendship is less like standing still
and more like climbing.
Mountain climbers rarely move in perfect unison.
One steps ahead.
One pauses for breath.
One studies the path.
One looks back.
But they are roped together.
Not to match every step -
but to make sure
if one slips,
the other holds.
So when it feels like you’re not walking in sync,
turn back.
Look at how far
you’ve already climbed together -
the valleys crossed,
the air you adjusted to,
the ground you learned to trust.
You didn’t get here by accident.
You’ve had each other’s back.
And just because you are not matching
every single step right now
doesn’t mean
you are no longer on the same mountain.
Sometimes you’re standing
on different ridges,
taking in different views.
The landscape may look different
from where each of you stands.
The rope
is still there.