Fragments of the Quiet Mind

Funny how life casts you in roles you never auditioned for. Me? Always the background character — the reliable extra who’s there, but never quite seen . Like a houseplant nobody remembers to water but somehow still alive. I hold the umbrella when no one wants to get wet, carry groceries nobody remembers, and pop up just in time to fix problems — then disappear faster than free food at a meeting. It’s a strange kind of existence: essential, but uncredited. Honestly, I’m beginning to think my superpower is perfecting the art of invisibility... or maybe just excellent at hiding behind the snacks. Sometimes I wonder if I’m secretly an invisible superhero. Not the cape-wearing kind — more like the person who makes sure the coffee’s brewed and the Wi-Fi doesn’t throw a tantrum. Meanwhile, the spotlight hits, and I’m already offstage, watching from the wings — probably scrolling through my phone pretending to be busy. Exhausting, really. But maybe that’s the point — being background means ...

It’s raining and I’m sitting in a bus going somewhere—somewhere vague enough to feel like progress but familiar enough to make me question if I’m just looping through life on autopilot. The windows are fogged, people are half-asleep or pretending to be, and outside, the rain politely ruins everyone’s plans. I glance at the umbrella tucked beside my seat. It's smug today. Useful. Fulfilled. Finally, it gets to do its one job. No more sulking in dark corners of my bag like some emotionally neglected sidekick. Today, it’s a hero. Rain? Bring it. Wind? Let’s tango. But then I wonder: What about the days it never gets opened? Three sunny days in a row, I still carried it like a nervous habit—just in case the sky changed its mind. And on those days, did it feel... betrayed? Like it wore its best water-resistant outfit for nothing? Like it practiced its unfolding motion all night and then got ghosted by the clouds? Do umbrellas spiral into existential crises when the weather app lies?...

We spend so much of our lives waiting for the big moments, the grand gestures, the dramatic shifts that promise to mark us with significance. But what if the truth is tucked away in the moments that slip by unnoticed? The small ones. The quiet ones. Like the way the sunlight hits the window just before dusk, painting the room with that strange golden glow. Or the way a friend’s laugh sounds after they’ve told a joke, something familiar but still warming. You might not remember these moments, not by name, but something in you changes every time they pass. It’s easy to think that life’s meaning lies in the milestones—the promotions, the graduations, the weddings, the great victories. But what about the moments before all that? The pauses, the silences, the ones where you were simply there , breathing, watching, existing. The times when nothing “big” happened but you felt everything. We often overlook them, these small moments. We think they don’t count. But they do. Because somewhere ...

Goodbyes are rarely the dramatic moments we imagine. We think they’ll be loud—final, decisive, with all the weight of an ending hanging in the air. But in reality, goodbyes often take their time, slipping in quietly, unnoticed until they’ve already happened. It’s never one single moment, but a slow withdrawal, a gradual absence. The first missed text doesn’t feel like much. The second time they cancel plans doesn’t seem like a signal. But over time, these small moments accumulate, and one day you realize they’ve stopped calling, stopped reaching out. You don’t know when it happened exactly—just that it did. It’s a strange thing, how people can disappear without making a sound. You can still see their name on your phone, hear their voice in your head, but in the space between you, there’s a silence that didn’t exist before. It's not an ending. It’s a slow, deliberate pulling away—one step at a time, until there’s a distance too great to bridge. Some goodbyes don’t shout. They’re ...