The Return to Self — What the Quiet Teaches You

Sometimes the quiet doesn’t just show you the world, it shows you yourself.

When you’re in the storm, you’re battling the storm. Everything around you becomes a blur. All you can see is what’s directly in front of you. But the moment the storm passes — even slightly — the world comes back into focus. So do you.

We’re less than 14 days from Thanksgiving, the weather is shifting, leaves are falling, and the air is getting crisp. This time of year always brings me back to my father. He loved summer more, but he had a deep respect for this season, the pause before winter, the preparation.

I remember him stacking piles of wood, preparing his garden, and using this time to slow down. He’d sit by the fire, read the books he collected all year, and just… be.

Still.
Present.
Calm.

It’s the same calm he carried when he fought lung cancer. A calm I somehow inherited. He was a Navy vet, steady hands, steady heart. He taught me how to build things, work with my hands, and be proud of what I create.

The storm he went through, and the storm we went through together, were different kinds of storms. But the calm we found inside them was the same.

Quiet conversations.
Stacking wood side by side.
Talking about the weather, life, goals, and who we were becoming.

I miss those moments, not the storms, but the stillness inside them. The presence. The simplicity.

Life takes detours, though. And eventually, I had to learn how to find that same pause in different places, in windshield time, in airport layovers, in early mornings before the world wakes up.

Storms will always come.

But the return to self… that happens in the quiet that follows.

Triple Espresso Reflection:

What quiet moment brought you back to yourself, and what did it show you?