Silence, Secrets, and the Space to Speak

While some people can’t stand silence, I can go days without saying anything to anyone—just watching, just listening. Maybe I got that from my father. Maybe it’s why I love solo traveling. I can sit in stillness and just take in the sounds around me. I can write. I can observe.

Silence was something I learned early. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that hides things. In my family, there was always something unsaid, something covered up, something withheld. We didn’t lie outright, but we learned how to tell half-truths, how to edit the story so it fit the rules. We had a saying between the siblings: Ignorance is bliss.

My siblings hid their significant others for years until it was the “right” time to present them for marriage. When I quit my job and became a yoga teacher in Europe, I told my parents I was doing training abroad—but I left out that I’d quit my job, and what the training was really for.

They never asked.

I never offered.

Because sharing meant risking shame.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Not sharing gave me a strange kind of freedom—the freedom to live a life outside my family’s gaze. A life where I could explore, be free, and experiment without my choices being pulled apart and handed back to me with guilt.

I played sports I was never allowed to try. I met people I wouldn’t have been “permitted” to know. I began to live in my own skin without the constant weight of someone else’s disapproval.

But hiding came at a cost.

I became an expert at concealing my shame. The cuts. The bruises. The depression. The exhaustion of carrying the constant pressure to be the perfect child. I learned to make my face unreadable, to nod when expected, to keep my struggles invisible.

And in doing so, my family lost the truth of who I was. The version they knew was curated—safe for them, but not real for me.

The Conditional Freedom of Marriage

In my parents’ world, marriage was the finish line. Once you get married, they’d say, you can do whatever you want.

It’s a strange realization—to feel like I needed to be married before I could truly show who I was, or be comfortable enough to speak without fear of being kicked out. Marriage didn’t make me freer in my own skin. I found that freedom on my own. But marriage did make me safer to be open.

It’s ironic. Technically, I’ve been “married off” to another family now. By tradition, I’m no longer under my parents’ roof, so I can’t be thrown out. But the emotional weight of that threat lingers, even when the door is no longer theirs to close.

Learning to Break the Silence

Writing became my safe release. Where I once hurt myself to let the pressure out, I began putting the weight into words instead. Writing gave me purpose. Maybe even hope—that someone out there might read my story and feel less alone.

Solo traveling taught me something that home never did: silence doesn’t have to mean fear. It can be a choice. It can be the space I need to hear myself think.

And writing has given me the courage to turn that silence into something else—something spoken, something shared. I can open wounds I once hid, not to hurt myself, but to heal.

Maybe that’s what real freedom is—not waiting for permission to speak, but learning to trust your voice enough to use it.

I no longer keep silent because I’m afraid. I keep silent when it feels right, when stillness is what I need. And when I speak, I speak because I choose to—not because someone allowed me to.

Silence used to be my hiding place.

Now, it’s just the pause before my voice.