A Voice I Only Hear on Paper

Where My Truest Voice Lives

I’ve been thinking about voices lately.
Not the metaphorical kind that tells you to buy a new guitar or eat gas station sushi (although I’ve listened to those too). I mean the actual voice, the one that shows up in conversation, or on a stage, or across a dinner table, and the quieter one that seems to live only in my writing.

They aren’t the same. Not even close.

In person, I know how to speak. I’ve performed stand-up for over a decade. I can deliver a punchline, guide a meeting, and make small talk without breaking a sweat. I’m used to the rhythm of a room. I know what works.

But when I sit down to write, especially in this space, I find a different version of myself. One that’s slower. More patient. Less interested in impressing, more interested in understanding. I get to listen to myself think. I get to sit with a thought and see what shape it really wants to take.

Somehow, on the page, I sound a little wiser than I do out loud.
Not smarter, just more whole.

I think it’s because writing gives me time.
Time to revise.
Time to change my mind.
Time to loop back and pick up the part I forgot to say the first time.

People sometimes say, “You have a way with words,” and what they mean is that the words landed in the right place. That something I wrote made them feel something. And what I want to tell them, what I never quite say out loud, is that I needed to write it to feel it too.

I still love the stage. I still love a good story told in a loud room. But the best of me, the part I trust, the part I’m still getting to know, needs a draft.

And a little time.
And maybe, some days, a blank page and no one watching.

And lately I’ve been wondering if other people might have another voice too.

Maybe you’ve never thought of yourself as a writer. That’s fine. You don’t have to be one. But if you’ve ever felt misunderstood or like the moment passed before you could say what you meant, try writing it down. Not to publish. Not to share. Just to know what it feels like to finish a thought on your own terms.

You might find a voice you didn’t know you had.
Not louder. Not more clever. Just… clearer.

Maybe we all have a voice that only lives in silence, waiting for us to type it into existence.