On the outside, things look normal.
Things get done. Decisions are made.
You move through hour by hour… minute by minute…Until that time comes…

That midnight hour.

When everything’s quiet.
People are gone. Everyone is in bed.
You think, another day ticked off, what’s tomorrow’s to-do list?.. But then there’s a break in that thought.

The overthinking starts.

The things you brushed past.
The moments you told yourself didn’t matter.
The conversations that should’ve happened.
The times you should’ve stood up for yourself.

Inside… it feels different. Like you haven’t moved at all.
Like you’re still standing in the same place.

I didn’t realise how much I had been holding on to until this time comes around.

That midnight head spin.

The kind where there’s no distraction left.
No day-to-day to hide behind.

Just your thoughts. The thoughts from the day, that week, that year.. Even five, ten, fifteen years ago.

Why are these thoughts surfacing, why now?

Did I stay quiet too long when I shouldn’t have?… Did i stay quiet when something didn’t feel right?… Did I stay quiet because I was worried what people would think? .. Because I was scared?… Or because it just felt easy?

Did I brush it off during the day just to keep moving… keep going?

But why at night…it comes back.

Knocking.
Repeating.
Over and over. And then you start searching. Googling what these feelings mean. Looking for answers, you probably already know… but hoping someone (aka Googling) will make it easy and just explain it for you.

But the next day comes, you adapt again, you move through it, you keep going, and the cycle repeats.

Because that’s what you know, that’s how you keep it together.

From the outside, you’re the one who keeps moving.
Who keeps going.
Who doesn’t stop long enough to get more curious about why these thoughts keep happening

Because if you do…
It might slow everything down.
You might lose your momentum.
Your consistency.

But all it’s doing…is bringing you back here.

12am.
1am.
Again.

And then one day, you stop. Just a quiet realisation that you’ve been carrying more than you thought.

And you’ve been carrying it alone. It doesn’t mean I’m broken…even though some days feel heavy.

It doesn’t mean I’ve lost myself…even when I can’t explain the thoughts, and am almost lost for words.

It just means I’ve been strong for a long time.

And maybe now…
I don’t have to hold it all the same way anymore.