OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

A quiet woman is, almost always, a tired woman.

There’s nothing poetic about silence. People love to wrap it in mystery, to pretend it’s wisdom, but most of the time it’s just exhaustion. It shows up when the tank is empty and the audience has proven unworthy. You stop talking not because you’ve reached some higher ground, but because explaining yourself has become a bad investment. Arguments don’t pay back, words fall flat, and patience turns into dust. At some point, silence isn’t strategy — it’s simply the most efficient way of saying: enough.

And then it happens: the voice falls silent. Not as a performance, not as some noble gesture, but as the natural end of too many words spent. The will to argue evaporates; there are no battles left worth fighting. What remains is not pride, but the snapping of the last thread.

It’s not a lack of courage, it’s a limit. And when a woman goes quiet, people like to call it pride or stubbornness. In truth, it’s exhaustion. After so much struggle, a deep fatigue settles in, as if not a shred of strength remains. It’s a kind of surrender — a “here, have this cup”. What follows is stillness. A quiet woman is, almost always, a worn-out woman. Often, she simply doesn’t care anymore. She’s given up. She will move on without hesitation.

The good thing about giving everything — far beyond what’s necessary — is that there’s nothing left undone or unsaid. There’s only the certainty that… everything was done. Leaving becomes easier, pushed, almost forced, by the acceptance of failure. Driven by the conviction that there was nothing left to fulfil, except goodbye.

To go further than needed is to find one consolation: a clear conscience. With the body tied in knots and the soul completely drained, one can only ask: was it necessary to come this far? Probably not. But it happened, and just as surely, the departure came. With the certainty that there’s no going back to that place ever again.