I'm Quiet,
250/300. But My Mind Is Not
I’m a quiet person, and I’m beginning to come to terms with that.
Not quiet as in I make little or no noise, but quiet as in I’m beginning to realize that everybody else likes to talk.
Everywhere I turn, someone is talking. Someone wants to say something, or they’re already saying something, and they always want me to listen.
They’re talking to me, in fact.
I’m dressing up for work, and someone’s talking in my ears. I get into a ride or a Keke, and someone’s talking. I’m in church, and someone’s talking. I’m trying to organize things, make food, or simply be, and someone is talking.
They’re always talking.
And I didn’t used to notice. Maybe because I didn’t want to accept that I was quiet, I welcomed every noise. I entertained conversations. I listened. I made room for other people’s words, even when my head was already full.
But when overstimulation sets in, when you begin to burn out from listening to people talk, you gradually start accepting reality.
I am quiet.
Not because I have nothing to say. I’m quiet in the sense that I’m almost always in my head.
I’m quiet, but my mind is not.
There is always something going on in there. Ideas are flying by. Thoughts are forming. Perspectives are taking shape. One thing leads to another, and before I know it, my mind has taken me somewhere I wasn’t planning to go.
It’s already a lot to deal with. How I’ve survived adding other people’s voices to all that noise, I genuinely don’t know.
But it’s been worse lately, and I think that’s why I’m beginning to notice it more.
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I genuinely just want to be left alone.
I want to be inside my head. I want to follow a thought wherever it takes me without having to abandon it halfway through because someone has something to say.
Or, at the very least, on the occasions when I’m really not in the mood for voices, I’d like people to let me be.
Some days, I really do not want to hear anybody talk. I think the most frustrating part is that I try to communicate this without actually saying it. At least that’s what I think I’m doing.
My body language says it.
My disassociation from reality says it.
My monotonous replies say it.
My face says it.
I’m physically present, but mentally, I’ve checked out. I’m giving you the bare minimum of a response because that’s all I can manage at the moment. And somehow, people don’t get it.
They keep talking.
I’m quite curious about why everybody wants to talk, but not curious enough to actually want to find out.
I don’t want an explanation. I don’t want to understand the human need for conversation. I don’t want to begin a journey on why silence makes some people uncomfortable or why some people seem to need to fill every available space with words. Not right now, anyway. Maybe topic for another day.
Right now, I just want the talking to stop.
Please.
Just stop talking.
I want to hear myself too.
I want to hear the voices in my head too.
Stop trying to drown them.
