The Loneliest Room in the House
Stories About What We Carry In Silence
The loneliest room in the house. Every house has one.
Not always with four walls. Sometimes it’s the car parked in the driveway long after the engine’s off. Sometimes it’s a quiet stretch of hallway between your kid’s old room and your bedroom, where their laughter used to echo, and now only the sound of your breath remains.
Sometimes, it’s the shower. Or the pantry.
Or the side of the bed no one sleeps on anymore.
These aren’t haunted rooms.
But they do hold ghosts.
In 2017, I visited a friend. Let’s call him Adam, at his new home in Austin. Big tech promotion. Bright guy. Brighter future.
He gave me the grand tour. Modern kitchen. Heated floors. Smart blinds. The works.
Then we reached the last room - tiny, sunlit, with an armchair and a bookshelf.
“This is where I sit when I miss my dad,” he said.
I turned to him, surprised. His father had passed nearly a decade ago.
“He never saw any of this,” Anil said. “The job, the house, and me being okay. I keep waiting for someone to clap, and the only person I want to hear it from is gone.”
He didn’t cry. He didn’t break down.
He just stood there, in his quiet room, looking bewildered.
We’ve been taught that grief has a finish line.
That healing is a staircase.
That time makes pain efficient, easier, and more palatable.
But grief isn’t a task.
It’s a shadow that adjusts its length depending on where the light falls.
Another friend, Natasha, runs a team of 120 at a fast-growing fintech. Confident. Unshakable. She’s the kind of leader who remembers birthdays, notices when you’re off, and never seems to need anything herself.
Until one day, she texts me at 2:11 a.m.
Just three words: “You up still?”
I call. She answers on the first ring.
Her voice is flat. “I just had this moment, sitting in the kitchen with a half-eaten meal, the dishwasher humming, and I realized I don’t think anyone’s asked me how I am in…months.”
She wasn’t angry. Just stunned.
“I’ve become the person people go to,” she said. “But I don’t go to anyone.”
That night, her kitchen became the loneliest room in the house.
This is what no one tells you when you grow up:
The stronger you are, the less people check in on you.
The more capable you seem, the more invisible your ache becomes.
And the loneliest people in any room are often the ones holding everyone else together.
I have always had a room like that, too.
In our first house, it was in the basement. Not very big.
Used to be where the kids painted signs for school elections, built blanket forts, and fought over who got the last cookie.
Now, it’s quiet.
There was a drawer with folded notes and handmade cards that said “Best Dad Ever” in faded Crayola.
A shelf with books they hadn’t touched in years.
A smell of old printer paper and forgotten magic.
I didn’t go there often. When I did, I’d sit on the floor and remember what it felt like to be needed every 12 minutes.
You don’t realize when the noise becomes silence. It sneaks up on you.
One closed door at a time.
I have one in our current home as well - it’s a corner in my upstairs home office.
Sometimes, the loneliest room is the one you built with love and outgrew.
Sometimes, it’s the place where your wins feel the most hollow.
Or the moment between the email saying “Congratulations!” and the one asking, “What’s next?”
We hide in plain sight.
Behind busy calendars.
Behind titles and toasts and “I’m fine, thanks.”
Behind “maybe next time” and “just tired.”
And we pretend that loneliness only belongs to those who are alone.
But that’s not true, is it?
Because you can be in a marriage celebration, in a crowd, in a party, and still feel like the only one not clapping.
So here’s what I want you to know:
If you have a room in your home, or in your heart, that no one visits—not even you—
You’re not strange.
You’re not weak.
You’re not broken.
You’re human.
And that room?
It’s not there to punish you.
It’s there to hold you.
To listen.
To witness.
To say: Here. Sit. Don’t pretend. Not today.
Strength isn’t always loud.
Sometimes, it’s just showing up. Again and again. In the silence.
Sometimes, it’s sweeping the patio.
Or answering a late-night call.
Or sitting in the chair where someone you love used to sit.
Some days, the bravest thing you’ll do is walk into the loneliest room in the house…
and not turn away.
You won’t need applause.
Or a fix.
Just space.
And the dignity to be whole in your solitude.
Because in that room, in the hush between what was and what will be…
You will find a voice.
Yours.
And it will whisper:
You are still here.
You are still worthy.
And you are not alone.
Stay well and enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and thank you for spending some of it with me.
Warm regards,
Adi