Empty Chair Diaries: Entry 6

The Silence Between Messages

I sent a message the other day and then found myself doing something I’ve done far too many times before. Waiting.

Not in any dramatic way. I wasn’t sitting by the phone staring at the screen or checking every few minutes to see if a reply had arrived. Life carried on as normal. I made a cup of coffee, answered a few emails and got on with my day. Yet somewhere in the background, the message remained. Every now and then my thoughts drifted back to it.

Had they seen it? Were they busy? Did they mean to reply but get distracted? Or had I said something that didn’t quite land the way I intended?

It’s remarkable how quickly the human mind can fill a silence with stories. Most of the time, the truth is far less interesting than the explanations we invent for ourselves. People are working, driving, looking after children, attending meetings or simply trying to keep up with their own lives. Yet when we’re waiting for a response, it’s easy to forget that the person on the other side of the conversation has a world just as full and complicated as our own.

I’ve noticed this becoming more common as communication has become instant. Messages arrive immediately. Emails arrive immediately. Notifications appear within seconds. Somewhere along the way, many of us started expecting replies to move at the same speed. But life has never really worked that way. Some conversations take time. Some decisions take time. Some people need space to think before they know what they want to say.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become a little more comfortable with uncertainty. Not because I enjoy waiting, but because experience has taught me that most silences aren’t personal. More often than not, the explanations are surprisingly ordinary. The person was busy. They forgot. They were travelling. Their phone battery died. The story I had created in my head was usually far more dramatic than reality ever turned out to be.

Perhaps that’s the lesson hidden inside the silence. Not every unanswered message needs an explanation, and not every pause needs to be filled. Sometimes life is simply unfolding on the other side of the conversation. The silence isn’t the end of the story. It’s just the space between one chapter and the next.

The empty chair remains where it has always been. Not abandoned or forgotten. Simply holding its place until someone sits down again.