Tonight, I find myself typing through tears. The room is quiet, but my mind isn’t. It keeps buzzing, replaying words, moments, and tiny things that somehow grew too heavy to carry. I told myself I’d sleep after taking my meds, that I’d drift to my safe place, the one where my thoughts finally rest. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not tonight.

Because something inside me still needs to be said.

For me, respect has always been sacred. It’s not something you demand or fake. It’s something you show, something you prove. You earn it by how you treat others, and you give it because it’s part of who you are. That’s why I keep reminding myself: show it, buktikan! Not with anger or pride, but with consistency and truth.

I know I can be strong, maybe too strong sometimes. I have a big personality, and that often makes people see me as unbending, when in reality, I just care too deeply. But lately, it’s been hard. I can feel when energy shifts, when understanding fades into assumptions, and when my sincerity starts to be misread as intensity.

And honestly, that’s one of the hardest things, to be misunderstood when your heart means well.

But I’m learning something lately: emotional maturity is letting people be wrong about you. It’s realizing that their narrative isn’t your responsibility to fix. Their version of you has nothing to do with who you truly are.

That’s where silence comes in.

Not the silence of defeat, but the silence of peace. The kind that protects your energy, your sanity, your soul.

I used to fear silence, thinking it meant weakness or distance. But now I see it differently. Silence can be strength. It can be dignity. It’s the moment when you choose not to react out of emotion, but to respond with calmness, or not at all.

Sometimes silence says more than a thousand explanations ever could. It whispers: I know who I am. It shields you from the chaos of trying to prove your worth to those who are not ready to see it.

And maybe that’s where respect begins, in the quiet decision to stop defending yourself and simply be.

Respect, for me, isn’t about hierarchy or perfection. It’s about how you treat people when no one’s watching. It’s about staying kind when it’s easier to be cruel. It’s about showing up even when you’re tired, even when your heart feels heavy.

So yes, I cry. I doubt. I fall apart quietly. But I also choose to rise again, not because I owe it to anyone, but because I owe it to myself. Because respect isn’t just something I ask for, it’s something I live by.

And if someday I step back or go silent, it’s not because I stopped caring.

It’s because I finally started listening – to myself.

To peace.

To the quiet voice that reminds me: I am enough.

~ Reendiana