The Quietest Version of Me

Chapter 11: The Quietest Version of Me

The quietest version of me doesn’t arrive suddenly.

She emerges slowly, like a figure stepping backward into shadow.

Not hiding.

Not collapsing.

Just withdrawing until only the faintest outline remains.

She is not the dimmed version.

She is not the disappearing version.

She is what comes after both.

The quietest version of me is what’s left when everything else has gone still.

The first thing that quiets is my voice — not the sound, but the impulse.

Words form slowly, if at all.

Sentences shrink.

Responses become shorter, softer, delayed.

It’s not that I have nothing to say.

It’s that speaking feels like breaking the surface of a deep, heavy silence I’ve sunk into.

The second thing that quiets is my expression.

My face becomes a landscape without weather.

No storms.

No sunlight.

Just a steady, muted neutrality.

Not numb.

Not blank.

Just quiet.

The third thing that quiets is my presence.

I move through rooms without disturbing the air.

I sit without shifting weight.

I breathe without drawing attention.

I become the kind of quiet that doesn’t ask to be noticed.

The quietest version of me is not invisible.

She is simply unobtrusive — a soft outline moving through the day with minimal impact.

The fourth thing that quiets is my reactions.

Nothing startles.

Nothing excites.

Nothing provokes.

Everything lands softly, as if the world has been padded.

Even my own emotions arrive muted, like they’ve been wrapped in cloth before reaching me.

The fifth thing that quiets is my wants.

Not erased — reduced.

Simplified.

Softened.

I don’t want more.

I want less.

Less noise.

Less demand.

Less movement.

Less of anything that requires rising.

The quietest version of me is not depressed.

She is conserving.

She is the version that emerges when the body is too heavy, the mind too slow, the days too blurred, the panic too silent, the ground too unstable to support anything louder.

The sixth thing that quiets is my internal narration.

The voice that once narrated everything with clarity and speed now speaks in whispers.

Short phrases.

Soft observations.

Sparse commentary.

It’s not silence.

It’s economy.

The seventh thing that quiets is my urgency.

Nothing feels pressing.

Nothing feels late.

Nothing feels like it must be done now.

Time stretches.

Tasks flatten.

The world moves around me while I remain still, steady, quiet.

My children sense this version of me in the way I pause before answering.

In the way I sit longer than usual.

In the way my voice softens to almost nothing.

They don’t see danger.

They see quiet.

The quietest version of me is not a crisis.

She is a response — the body and mind reducing output to survive the weight, the dimming, the slow motion, the quicksand.

She is the version that emerges when rising is impossible, when speaking is effort, when existing feels like wading through thick, heavy air.

She is not gone.

She is not broken.

She is not lost.

She is the lowest setting —

the dimmest light,

the softest sound,

the smallest footprint.

She is the version of me that endures when everything else has been stripped away.

The quietest version of me is not the end.

She is the pause.

The breath.

The stillness before anything can begin again.