“Distance is not always measured in miles, but in truth withheld.”

The sound of joy can be piercing when you stand outside of it. Laughter, music, the hum of boats, and it all carries across the water as if it belonged to me, too. But sound has a way of reminding us of what we are not part of.

It is a strange ache, to be so close and yet so far. A hundred feet. A breath of distance. And yet, it might as well have been a hundred miles. Because distance is never only about space. Sometimes it is about what is withheld, the belonging that is denied, the truth that is hidden, the words that never come.

I noticed how my body responded. My chest tightened, my breath grew shallow, as if the noise itself had weight. For a moment, I wanted to disappear into that pain. To quiet it by numbing it. That impulse startled me, not because it was powerful, but because it was new. The thought that not existing, even just for a while, might feel easier than existing with the ache.

But healing asks something different of us. It asks us to stay. To notice what rises, to feel it in the body, and to choose not to vanish. So I walked. I wrote. I lit candles and let salt water hold me. I chose presence, even when presence hurt. And in choosing presence, I found a kind of strength I did not know I had, the courage to sit with what is unbearable without trying to erase myself.

We all face these moments. Maybe not with sound across the water, but with the reminder of where we are not welcomed, of who has turned away, of what no longer includes us. The details may differ, but the ache is the same. The question is not how to erase it, but how to live through it, and in living through it, discover that we are stronger than the silence that excludes us.

In that, what was found, was a new silence that resonated peace, rather than questions or pain, a resilience that screamed, “I’m here, I’m you”.

~Kerri Elizabeth ~

What do we do when the noise around us becomes louder than the peace within us? Do we disappear into it, or do we rise above it and let it sharpen our awareness instead?