That 2am dead air I used to panic about? Now I kind of miss it.

I spent thirty years filling silence with music, chatter, anything to keep the listener from turning the dial. Tonight I'm sitting here listening to the quiet between songs on my own stereo, and it's not empty. It's like an archive of all the nights I wasn't ready to end. The waiting feels different now — less desperate, more like I'm holding the space for something that might not need to arrive.