Have you ever worried without understanding why, when you send a message and the response doesn't come? At that moment, the chat remains open, the last text on the screen seems to stare back at you, as if waiting with you. And then the wait begins, that uncertain territory between what you've already said and what the other person hasn't yet responded to.

Sometimes we don't even know if they've read it. There are options to hide confirmations, and then we're left suspended in a kind of digital fog: no certainty, no signals. Other times, we do know: the blue ticks are there, pristine, and yet the silence weighs more than any word.

And it's in that gap—without a response or explanation—that anxiety grows. You reread what you wrote, analyzing each word, checking whether it sounded too cold, too direct, too something... Time becomes elastic: five minutes seem like half a lifetime. And in that void, the mind invents all kinds of stories, all with the same purpose: to justify the silence.

Technology gave us the illusion of knowing everything, but not the ability to endure uncertainty. It taught us to read digital signs, but not to interpret silences. And perhaps that's the real challenge: accepting that we don't always have the right to an immediate answer.

Because sometimes the other person doesn't respond because they can't, don't want to, or are simply in a different time. And none of those options should take away our calm.

When we've already thought everything through and time keeps passing, fear takes over, and we're presented with an almost magical action to eliminate the anxiety: erase the message. Erase it, as if by doing so we could undo the intention or correct what we feel. But if we do, the mark remains: "message deleted," a silent evidence that screams louder than any words. Then another, even more disturbing question arises: if we erase it, what will the other person imagine we said? Sometimes the attempt to erase ends up saying much more than the message itself.

Waiting doesn't have to be a suffering. It can be a space where we learn to let go, to let the message travel without controlling its destiny, to understand that the silence of others doesn't always say something about us, nor should it hurt us. Not receiving an immediate response shouldn't cause us anguish or make us doubt ourselves.

Turn off your screen, make a cup of coffee, and listen to the world without notifications.