Velvet Absence !!!

(Presence isn’t always proof of connection. Sometimes, absence wears velvet.)

Imagine being gifted a grand piano in the middle of your living room. It’s elegant. Polished. The kind people admire when they enter. It reflects the light beautifully. You dust it regularly, maybe even place fresh flowers on top. But the truth sits heavy — it has never played you a single tune unless you initiated it. And even then, it never quite caught the rhythm of your mood.

Some presences are like that. Perfectly there, consistently around, impressively responsive. But emotionally tone-deaf. They know where you are, they check in on the logistics, they send the medicine when asked but never ask how the ache feels. They show up with umbrellas when it rains, yet never wonder if you’re afraid of thunder.

You find yourself becoming a curator of your own inner museum. You label the exhibits — “Slightly Numb”, “Mildly Breaking”, “Mostly Smiling”, “Fully Tired”. You start issuing emotional bulletins, because subtlety never lands. You say you’re hurting, and they bring bandages. But they never ask where it bleeds the most.

And yet paradoxically;they feel betrayed when you don’t send them an invite to your pain. As if proximity were entitlement. As if being there should be enough. They’re upset about not being told, but never curious about what you were actually going through when you did tell them. They miss the call, then argue about why you didn’t call twice.

It’s like asking someone to read poetry in a language they never cared to learn.

So you adjust. You shrink the wish list. You laugh alone. You brew your own tea and stop waiting for emotional fluency. Because eventually, you realise you are in a duet with someone who only ever hums along. You bring symphonies, they bring silence. You speak in rain, they respond with forecasts.

You start to live with the velvet absence — that strange companion who is always physically present, but emotionally somewhere in another timezone. They mean well. They really do. They bring flowers, not feelings. They offer steps, not soul.

And so you create humour out of the gaps. You perform your own healing. You turn yourself into a stage, an audience and the scriptwriter. You laugh at the timing of everything and realise the applause you were waiting for was actually your own.

Because sometimes, presence isn’t a place.
It’s the ability to notice even when nothing is said.

And absence isn’t always a missing person.
Sometimes, it’s someone standing right beside you,
asking all the right questions
except the ones that actually matter.