Chapter One: The Things We Never Say
Dreams have weight.
Not the kind you can measure on a scale, but the kind that settles quietly on the chest at night, pressing harder when the world finally goes silent.
I learned this early—how a dream can live inside a person for years without ever being spoken aloud. Mine lived in the pauses between my sentences, in the long looks I gave the road whenever I didn't know where I was going, in the sighs that escaped me when I pretended I was fine.
From the outside, my life looked ordinary. Predictable, even. I woke up, did what was expected of me, smiled when necessary, and swallowed the questions that threatened to rise to my lips. People called it strength. Responsibility. Maturity.
But inside me was a life unlived.
There were things I wanted—things I imagined in quiet moments when no one was watching. A different path. A braver choice. A version of myself who dared to say this is what I want without apologizing for it. Yet each time the words came close, fear tightened its grip. Fear of disappointing the people I loved. Fear of failing. Fear of discovering that my dreams were never meant for me at all.
So I did what many of us do.
I kept quiet.
Silence has a strange way of disguising itself as peace. It convinces you that staying still is safer than moving forward, that survival is the same as living. Over time, the silence grows familiar, almost comforting—until one day you realize it has become heavy. Too heavy to carry without breaking.
That realization came to me on an ordinary morning.
Nothing dramatic happened. No accident. No sudden loss. Just a moment—small but sharp—when I caught my reflection and didn't recognize the person staring back. The eyes looked tired. Not from lack of sleep, but from years of restraint. Years of holding back a voice that was begging to be heard.
I remember thinking, How long can someone live like this?
That was the first time I admitted the truth to myself:
unspoken dreams don't disappear. They wait. They linger. And eventually, they demand attention.
This book begins there—at the edge of silence.
At the moment when carrying the weight becomes harder than facing the fear of letting it go.