🌀📝 Spiral Reflections: The First Quiet Distance.
Eric’s CornerMonday December 15, 2025. Reflections from the Spiral.
There is a moment when something shifts and you don’t say anything.
Not because you don’t notice.
Not because it doesn’t matter.
But because it feels too small to name without sounding dramatic.
It shows up as a pause you don’t fill.
A reply you take a little longer to send.
A question you almost ask and then decide not to.
You tell yourself it’s nothing.
You tell yourself you’re tired.
You tell yourself this is just how relationships breathe.
And maybe it is.
But something in you registers the change anyway.
Not as thought.
As sensation.
A slight tightening.
A subtle pull back.
A feeling that you are suddenly standing half a step farther away than you were before.
No one else would clock it.
Nothing has happened yet.
But the body knows when proximity has shifted, even when words haven’t.
This is usually where we tell ourselves to wait.
To see if it passes.
To see if they notice.
To see if it resolves on its own.
Waiting feels reasonable here.
It feels patient.
It feels mature.
But waiting is also the first place distance learns how to stay.
This reflection feels like someone naming that almost‑invisible moment when closeness shifts, not with drama but with a tiny tremor the body catches before the mind does. It captures the way a pause suddenly feels heavier, how a delayed reply lands differently even when nothing “happened.” What makes it profoundly human is the tenderness toward our instinct to downplay what we feel, to call it tiredness instead of truth. The writing understands how the body whispers warnings long before we dare to speak them. It evokes the ache of realising you’re standing just half a step farther away without knowing why. The piece honours the courage it takes to notice without accusing, to feel without collapsing into fear. It recognises the quiet rituals we use to soothe ourselves waiting, hoping, pretending patience is clarity. Beneath every line is the truth that intimacy shifts in micro‑movements, not declarations. And the reflection gently reminds us that our bodies often tell the story long before our words catch up.