✨ The Night I Sat With the Moon

It had been years since I truly sat in silence.

Not the kind of silence you get from turning off your phone, or staying home on a rainy Sunday. I’m talking about the kind of silence that hums through your bones—the type that only exists far away from electricity, signal towers, and responsibilities that pile up like unpaid bills on a dusty desk.

I’d driven for hours, leaving behind the neon buzz of town lights and the chattering static of the radio. I wasn’t sure where I was headed, only that I needed to feel nothing for a while—no voices, no deadlines, no digital screens burning into my eyes.

Just me, the road, and the ever-darkening sky.

By the time I found a spot to stop, the world was bathed in blue and shadows. I set up camp near a cliff’s edge overlooking a valley carved by time and water. A thin silver river wound its way through the darkness like a snake that had swallowed stardust.

I lit a fire. The crackle of the wood was the only sound besides my own breath. I sank into an old wooden chair that had been riding in the back of my truck for months—never used, always waiting.

Then she rose.

The moon.

Not a sliver or a ghost, but full and bright, commanding the sky like an ancient queen. She glowed with the weight of countless stories, watched by the same eyes for millennia—from cavemen to astronauts, from dreamers to the broken-hearted.

That night, I joined them.

I took a sip of whiskey and let the heat sink in, not just in my throat but deeper. Somewhere between my chest and the space I once called a soul. The bottle was a poor companion, but she never asked questions, never told me to "man up," never reminded me of the life I left behind.

Funny how silence can be so loud.

The moonlight lit up the tips of the trees like silver halos. Shadows stretched across the earth, long and deliberate, like fingers reaching out from the past. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. Or maybe it was just my mind echoing in the vast emptiness.

I thought I came here to escape. But maybe, just maybe—I came here to listen.

To what, I wasn’t sure.

I remembered my father.

He used to take me camping when I was little. Back when life was simple and firewood was a treasure. We’d sit by the fire, just like this, and he’d tell me stories—half true, half myth, but all magical. Stories about rivers that knew your name, mountains that moved when you weren’t looking, and moons that whispered secrets if you were quiet enough.

He’s been gone five years now. But in that moment, with the moon overhead and fire warming my boots, I could almost hear his voice again. Not in memory, but in presence.

“Son,” he used to say, “you don’t have to understand everything. You just have to feel it.”

So I sat there. And I felt.

I felt the smoke curl around my face like a ghost trying to kiss me goodbye. I felt the wind nudge my jacket like an old friend reminding me to breathe. I felt the weight of time—not in minutes or hours, but in regrets and moments lost to noise.

And above all, I felt her gaze—the moon. Watching. Listening. Never judging.

She didn’t blink.

I thought about calling someone. Maybe my brother. Maybe her. The one who used to hold my hand like it was a promise. But I didn’t. I let the thought rise and fall, like smoke disappearing into the pine-scented air.

This moment wasn’t for anyone else.

It was for the broken parts of me that never got to grieve. For the pieces that never found the right glue. For the silence that had waited patiently for me to return.

The fire crackled, the whiskey emptied, the stars multiplied.

Time lost its grip. I couldn’t tell if I had been there an hour or a lifetime.

But I knew this:

That stillness was not empty. That solitude was not loneliness. And that sometimes, the most powerful conversations are the ones you have with the sky.

As dawn began to threaten the night with light, the moon dipped toward the mountains. Her glow softened, retreating, but not disappearing. Like a teacher who had said all she needed to say.

The river still flowed, carving its way through the forest like a scar and a blessing. The fire had died, but the warmth lingered in the dirt, in my skin, in my chest.

I packed up in silence. No rush. No sorrow. Just a sense of something shifting inside me—subtle, but real.

As I drove away, the sky turned from navy to violet. A new day, unasked for, but welcome.

And somewhere behind me, in that quiet valley, the moon waited for the next soul who needed to remember how to feel.

🌕

That night, I didn’t just see the moon. I sat with her. And she spoke volumes… without saying a word.