The Quiet Space

There are days when I miss my childhood so fiercely it stops me in my tracks.

Not because everything was perfect, but because life felt simple. Whole. Slow in all the right ways.

I miss my grandma’s house – her little white house with the blue trim out in the country. I miss the hum of the television playing her favorite shows in the background while something warm simmered on the stove. I miss the creak of the screen door, the quiet hush of the living room, the way I felt completely safe just sitting near her. I didn’t know it then, but those moments were shaping me.

Back then, joy wasn’t complicated. It was a holiday spent with family, the feeling of grass beneath my feet, the thrill of holding a camera in my hand on Christmas morning. It was being barefoot on the back patio, watching the sky stretch wide and blue, with nothing pulling my attention away. Just presence.

And I find myself craving that now.

Adulthood can feel loud. Rushed. Pressured. Full of expectations and endless comparison. But when I close my eyes, I return to those quiet, sacred spaces – and I realize that what I’m really homesick for isn’t just the house or the people or the time… it’s the simplicity.

The feeling of being fully in the moment. Of belonging without earning it. Of being loved without needing to prove anything.

And so now, I try to carry that simplicity with me.

I light a candle and let the scent take me back to her kitchen. I sit in silence and let myself just be. I savor little things – music playing in the background, a soft blanket, a quiet morning—and remember that this is what life is meant to feel like.

Simple. Present. Real.

We don’t need to go back in time to feel at home. Sometimes we just need to return to ourselves – the version of us who once found wonder in the ordinary.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s how we keep the most important things alive.