I didn’t notice the silence at first. The kind that spoke of better days ahead.

For years my life had a soundtrack. Prayers in the morning. Notifications at night. Voices in my head telling me what a good wife does, what a good Christian girl wears, what a good daughter never asks for.

When I stopped performing, the music stopped too. And in that quiet, I heard something I hadn’t heard since I was maybe ten:

My own laugh.

It was small. It happened over a pot of pepper soup that I made too spicy on purpose. I took one spoonful, my eyes watered, and I laughed out loud in...