The Quiet Wars We Fight Alone

I was thirteen when I first learned that silence could be deafening.

It was a Tuesday. My father had come home late again. The house didn’t shake with yelling, as it sometimes did. No doors slammed. No dishes broke. Instead, it was eerily still so still that even the sound of my heartbeat in my ears felt too loud. I remember sitting in the hallway, knees pressed against my chest, trying to become invisible. There wasn’t a war that night. At least, not one with noise.

But that was the night I realized that not all wars are fought with fists or fury. Some are fought in silence. In the spaces between people. In the aching distance between the words they don’t say.

And those wars never seem to end.

The Hidden Battles

As I grew older, I learned to spot the signs. The smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes. The “I’m fine” spoken just a little too quickly. The laugh that lingered too long, like it was trying to fill a void. I became a collector of these invisible cues—a quiet observer in a world full of hidden pain.

In high school, my best friend Sarah wore oversized hoodies even in the summer. She laughed loud, made everyone feel included, and always had gum in her backpack. People called her “sunshine in human form.” But I knew something they didn’t. I’d seen the faint red lines on her wrists when her sleeve slipped one afternoon.

She never said anything. I never pushed.

We fought our own quiet war - I tried to be enough reason for my stay, his pretension was nothing wrong. Sometimes I think she knew I knew it. And that was enough.

She moved in the summer after the junior year. I've never heard from him again.

The Weight We Carry

I’ve always hated the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” No, sometimes what doesn’t kill you just changes you. It makes you quieter. Less trusting. A little more cautious with your heart.

We carry our scars in different ways. Some of us wear them like badges. Others bury them so deep they become part of the soil from which we grow. But they’re there. Always.

Sometimes I wonder how she used to sing while washing clothes. After my dad left, he stopped singing. It was as if music came out of his bones. She was quiet. He worked more. Smile less.

I once found him cry in the laundry room. He said there was something in his eye.

Both of us pretended to be true.

In the Mirror

By the time I was twenty-five, I had perfected the art of looking okay. I held a good job. Laughed at the right moments. Responded to “how are you?” with “good, and you?”

No one ever asked twice.

I lived alone in a studio apartment with peeling paint and a bathroom mirror that always fogs. That mirror was my confession. I clean it, stare at my eyes and whisper that I can't say to anyone else.

“I’m so tired.”

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

“Is it always going to feel like this?”

I kept going. Not because I was strong, but because stopping felt worse.

A Stranger’s Kindness

One evening I sat far to the house. I wasn't ready to be alone yet. I wandered into a small bookstore, which was more than one personality than profits. An elderly man nodded behind the counter, but didn't talk.

I targeted until I found a book entitled "Things We Never Cess." The title cooled me.

The man saw me holding it and said softly, “That one helped me.”

I didn’t ask how. I didn’t need to. I just nodded.

We shared a look—one of those quiet acknowledgments between two people who’ve known sorrow intimately.

I bought the book. I never read it.

Just owning it felt like a conversation.

The Wars Go On

The quiet wars don’t end with a single victory. There are no parades. No medals. No final peace treaty.

They ebb and flow. Some days, the battlefield is bare. Other days, you wake up already wounded.

But slowly, you learn to fight differently.

You reach out, even when your hands shake. You let someone in, even if just a little. You answer “how are you?” with “not great today” and let the silence that follows feel like a hug instead of an accusation.

You talk about Sarah.

You talk about your mother.

You talk about yourself.

The Reason We Stay

Maybe we don't drive because we are unbreakable, but because we are broken - and we have destroyed so many times that we have learned how to keep the pieces in a different way.

Maybe strength is not to avoid pain, but to leave it with happiness.

Maybe the real courage is in living through the ordinary days, the empty nights, the echoing silences and still choosing to show up again tomorrow.

Maybe we are the battlefield and the peace treaty.

Maybe we are the war—and its resolution.

You Are Not Alone

If you read it, I want you to know: Your quiet war means something. Although no one sees it. Even if you have never called it. Even if it's just you, crying behind the closed doors or when you look at the world, it holds together.

You are not weak.

You are not failing.

You are not alone.

And though the world may never build monuments for the wars you’ve survived, you are here.

And that is enough.