The Silent Years — Why Writing Fell Asleep?

When I think back on the years when I stopped my daily writing practice, I cannot describe them simply as exhaustion or detachment. After graduating from university in June 2012, my life accelerated without pause. I entered Tibetan medicine training almost immediately. My days were densely packed: meeting people from different countries, working in Tibetan hospitals, accompanying doctors on patient visits, hiking into the mountains to collect herbs, and learning to identify medicinal plants.

After more than a year of preparation and uncertainty, I finally secured my documents and passport. In October 2013, I left the country for the first time, taking what felt like a decisive step toward a life beyond what had been expected of me.

Looking back, I was carried by an outward-expanding vitality. Writing—diaries and poems that had once served as my emotional outlet—no longer felt urgent. It had helped me process repressed feelings and confusion, but once I left the tightly controlled school system, where my posture, speech, and behavior were constantly monitored, much of my anger simply dissolved. Freedom loosened something inside me. I could learn anywhere, from anyone.

Most of the time, I did not feel framed by being young or female. Yet there were moments when being a young woman clearly worked against me. Undesired attention, speculation, and misinterpretations of my outgoing personality and open-mindedness gave rise to a long trail of rumors. Entering a completely new environment, I believe, offered me a kind of reset. In that openness and sense of renewal, writing faded naturally—or perhaps more accurately, I no longer needed it as a shield.

This does not mean I abandoned words entirely. I continued to write, but casually and in fragments: on tissue paper, sticky notes, newspapers, and later on social media. As I moved in and out of retreat, practicing Yuthok Nyingthig and focusing more deeply on Tibetan medicine, my orientation shifted. Medical training and disciplined practice drew me toward pragmatism—toward stability, continuity, and sustained relationships. The heat of writing was gradually covered by the rhythms of a more functional life.

In hindsight, those silent years were not the end of writing, but a period of gathering strength. Writing sank beneath the surface of my body, no longer shimmering in daylight. It waited—for clarity, for stamina, for honesty—until I was ready to call it back.

Recently, writing has found its way back into my life. If my heart is a peach tree, then it has matured and begun to bear fruit—ready, at last, to offer peaches filled with nourishment, richness, and their own quiet sweetness.