Where Silence Belongs to Me

There’s a rose quartz steam room I visit sometimes.
It isn’t advertised as sacred. It isn’t always silent.
But when I step into it — and I’m alone, if I’m lucky — the world goes still.
The benches are warm. The scent is rose. The light is soft, just enough to hold you without asking for anything in return.
And in that stillness, something in me realigns.

And this is why I return.

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to these spaces — not always steam rooms, but always quiet rooms.
Rooms where the world feels like it knows not to knock.

When I enter, I’m not composed.
I don’t arrive grounded.
I arrive scattered, overloaded, noisy — carrying a brain full of thoughts that feel tangled like soup.
I come to pause.
To be somewhere no one needs me, nothing pings, and nothing reflects back expectation.
Only truth.
Only me.

There are rules for these spaces. Sacred ones.

No guilt.
No self-punishment.
No phones (except for the rare, soft scrolling through beauty — not escape, but quiet).
No performing. No explaining.

If I could walk in naked, I would — not for exposure, but for return.
For the truth of being held as I am.

I bring scent.
I bring warmth.
I bring readiness — not to be productive, but to be real.

And this is why I return.

There was a time — recently — when I sat in that rose-scented steam room and everything in me felt unrecognisable.
Blurred at the edges. Palatable. Performing.
The thoughts were thick. My sense of self was thinned.
And I knew something had to shift.

That room gave me the next step.
Not a plan. Not a breakthrough.
Just a single, clear step — and enough stillness to trust it.
That’s when I knew I needed to write again.
To untangle the inner contradictions, to structure the internal chaos, to find the fifth why — and keep asking.

And this is why I return.

When I leave the room, I don’t expect transformation.
But I do expect clarity.
Even if it’s just one thread, one truth, one decision I can hold with certainty.
Not because someone told me.
Not because I scrolled and found it.
Because I slowed down enough to know it.

I walk out grounded.
Feet firm. Heart steady.
Soft, but unshakable.

There’s a kind of softness that comes from conviction — not loud conviction, but the quiet kind that doesn’t need validation.
The kind that knows:
This next step is mine.

And this is why I return.

Because in this chapter of my life —
Where so much is shifting.
Where milestones loom and meaning tangles.
Where I’m holding others while trying not to lose myself —
I need a space that’s just mine.

Where stillness isn’t indulgence. It’s necessity.
Where the mirror is honest.
And the silence belongs only to me.

And this is why I return.