The Silence Between Sentences
Ruth hadn’t written in twenty-three days.
She kept count not with an app, but with a post-it note, faded and curling on the edge of her desk. A single sentence stared back at her from the laptop screen—half a thought, stopped mid-breath.
She reread it for the fourth time that morning.
It felt like someone else had written it. Someone braver.
She closed the laptop, set her glasses down beside it, and stood.
The room was too quiet, like it was holding its breath. She folded a dishtowel even though it didn’t need folding. Checked the lock on the door, twice. Walked back to her chair, sat, stood again.
The pattern was familiar now. She didn’t fight it. But the ache of it—that dense, full feeling in the middle of her chest—was starting to feel less like resistance and more like failure.
Not the kind you recover from.
The kind you learn to live with.
The Ghost of Trying
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
Ruth had started the memoir three years ago, the week after her mother’s funeral. The words had come easily at first—half out of grief, half adrenaline. There was something urgent about it then. Like she was recording details before they disappeared.
The smell of her mother’s hand lotion. The way she never finished a sentence, letting you catch the last word yourself.
But once the initial rush faded, something colder moved in.
She started editing mid-sentence. Scrapping entire pages. Stalling in the name of research, refinement, review.
And the more time passed, the harder it was to face the file at all. Not because she didn’t know what to say.
But because she wasn’t sure she had the right to say it.
Joel Calls
She almost didn’t answer when Joel called. She wasn’t in the mood for pretending.
He didn’t ask how the book was going—not right away. He never did. He just told her about the mess his roof was in, and how his daughter had started cutting her own bangs.
They talked for half an hour before Ruth finally said, “I opened the file this morning. That’s it.”
Joel didn’t push.
After a long pause, he said, “You remember when I was dealing with the insomnia? The year after the divorce?”
Ruth nodded, even though he couldn’t see her.
“I started tapping,” he said. “Thought it was stupid at first. But it helped.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Emotional Freedom Techniques,” he added. “EFT. Kind of like acupuncture without needles. You tap on pressure points and say things out loud. A therapist walked me through it once.”
Ruth didn’t answer.
“I know it sounds weird,” he said, “but it helped me get out of my head. Helped me tell the truth.”
He paused again.
“There’s a researcher—Kristin Neff. She talks about this idea of self-compassion not being soft. It’s not letting yourself off the hook. It’s letting yourself stay in the room.”
Ruth felt the sting of that.
Because that’s what she hadn’t been doing. She hadn’t stayed in the room with the work. Not really. She hovered near it like a ghost. She thought if she could keep enough distance, it wouldn’t hurt as much.
She was wrong.
Joel added, “If you want, I’ll send you a short video. Walks through the basics. Low pressure.”
Ruth said nothing. Just nodded into the quiet.
Later That Night
She watched the video in bed with the sound low.
The man in the video tapped gently on the side of his hand while repeating a sentence.
“Even though I feel stuck, I accept myself just as I am.”
The phrase caught her off guard. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it sounded like something she should have heard a long time ago. And never did.
Another name appeared in the sidebar: Stef Gonzaga.
Ruth clicked through. A short article. Creative block. Compassion fatigue. Gonzaga wrote about naming the discomfort, not analyzing it—about staying with what was true, not what was productive.
One line echoed:
“Perfectionism is just fear in its Sunday clothes.”
Ruth felt something in her body shift—not a release, exactly, but recognition. A moment of being seen.
She sat up, reached for her notebook.
In the margins of a half-used page, she wrote:
Tapping Attempt — Day One
Karate Chop (side of hand):
Even though I feel like I should be farther along, I want to offer myself patience instead of punishment.
Eyebrow: This pressure in my chest
Side Eye: The shame that says I’m lazy
Under Eye: The fear that I’ve wasted time
Under Nose: What if I’ve already failed?
Chin: What if I haven’t?
Collarbone: Letting some of that shame loosen
Under Arm: Letting it be okay to be where I am
Top of Head: Choosing one small step
She stopped after one round.
Her body didn’t feel “healed.” But her shoulders settled just enough that she could breathe a little easier.
The Pact
The next morning, she lit a small lamp on the dining table. The kind of warm light that made the pages in her notebook feel less like evidence and more like possibility.
She didn’t call it writing time. She called it “ten-minute truth.”
No goals. No outlines. Just ten minutes to tell the truth, however messy.
She opened the file.
Typed: “The last thing I said to her was a lie. I said I was fine.”
That was it.
But she didn’t close the laptop this time.
She sat with the sentence. Let it breathe.
And for the first time in weeks, she felt the silence shift from suffocation to stillness.
A Week of Small Truths
Each morning, Ruth did the same thing.
Ten minutes. Gentle light. One honest sentence.
On the third day, she tapped again. Not out of desperation, but from a place of quiet respect—for herself.
Karate Chop:
Even though I still don’t feel like a real writer, I want to show up anyway.
Eyebrow: This doubt in my stomach
Side Eye: All the times I stopped before
Under Eye: The belief that I can’t finish
Under Nose: I’m allowed to keep going
Chin: Even if it’s imperfect
Collarbone: Especially if it’s imperfect
Under Arm: Letting myself show up as I am
Top of Head: That counts too
She printed a checkmark tracker and stuck it to the wall.
Each day she wrote, she marked it.
Not to prove anything. Just to see herself moving.
The Collapse
Ten days in, it fell apart.
She read over a paragraph she had written earlier in the week and felt a cold wave of embarrassment.
It’s indulgent. It’s vague. It doesn’t sound like literature.
The old familiar ache returned, sitting low in her belly.
She walked to the window. Stared out at the dull grey sky.
Then reached for her notebook—not to write, but to tap.
Karate Chop:
Even though this feels like a backslide, I want to be kind to the part of me that’s afraid.
Eyebrow: This voice that says I’m doing it wrong
Side Eye: This fear of being ordinary
Under Eye: The pressure to prove something
Under Nose: The grief of not meeting my own expectations
Chin: I don’t have to earn my worth through brilliance
Collarbone: Letting that soften
Under Arm: Letting myself write a bad paragraph
Top of Head: That’s still progress
She didn’t write that day.
But she didn’t close the file either.
That was enough.
Repair and Return
The following week, Joel sent her a photo of his ceiling mid-repair. Wires exposed. Dust everywhere.
He wrote: “Sometimes rebuilding just looks like this.”
Ruth smiled. Tapped once more before opening her laptop.
Karate Chop:
Even though I feel uncertain, I choose presence over perfection.
Eyebrow: This moment of doubt
Side Eye: This edge of hesitation
Under Eye: This fear of being visible
Under Nose: Maybe I don’t need to be ready
Chin: Maybe I just need to begin
Collarbone: Letting one sentence be enough
Under Arm: Letting ten minutes count
Top of Head: Letting myself return
She opened the file.
Typed one line:
“It wasn’t the words I couldn’t find—it was the permission to use them.”
She didn’t cry. She didn’t cheer.
She just kept typing.
The Not-Quite Ending
The book is not done.
The structure is still wobbly. Some chapters are bare outlines. Some are too raw to touch.
But the silence is no longer paralyzing.
It has become a place she visits each day, gently. Without shame.
She writes not to impress, not to complete, but to stay.
As Dr. Neff wrote, compassion isn’t a reward—it’s the condition that makes creativity possible.
And as Gonzaga taught her, you don’t need to win your battle with fear.
You just need to walk alongside it.
“You are still worthy—even mid-sentence.”
“You’re not behind. You’re becoming.”
“Begin again.”
