I live in a beautifully rich intricate world—a whole other world only I am privy to—always spinning and swirling in my head.
It’s filled with all of my hopes and dreams; and fantasies about perfection rising from imperfection. It’s constantly fueled by epic stories of the mystical and the mundane. There’s light and dark. Love and hate. It’s a wonderfully safe space and my own worst enemy.
I’ve always been a very quiet person. And in unknown situations where I feel utterly alone and uncomfortable, I tend to shrink into myself. As a child, I was just considered shy. I would hide myself behind my incredibly long hair and when I was old enough, a very thick book. But as an adult, those mechanisms of self preservation no longer serve their purpose as I am constantly worrying that I may come off rude.
But you have to understand, if I seem a bit detached and quiet it’s only because I’m taking in my entire surroundings. I’m hearing you, I’m seeing you, and I’m understanding you. I am not ignoring you, it’s just that the noise in my head is terribly distracting. I can’t think fast enough and if I acknowledge you too quickly I’ll instantly regret it.
I was told by a college professor once that I’m very quiet in class, but that he appreciated when I did comment because my sparse comments were always something of worth. I suppose this is why small talk was never for me. I’m incapable of idle babble and often struggle with coming up with things to say that aren’t surface stuff about myself or basic observations. I think it’s because it takes me a long time to process and analyze things in order to understand them and possibly respond to them. A lot of the time things don’t need any response to them, so my brain simply dismisses it. I find that because of this, I often react the wrong way or say the wrong things. I can’t possibly tell you about all of the times I’ve berated myself after the fact. I prefer to take my time with things and only speak when I actually have something to say. My words are more meaningful then because I took the time to really think them through.
The noise is awfully loud in my head though. It is constant.
Sometimes I enjoy too much of my time in there that I often forget about the real outside world. More often than not I find that my dreams are much better than my reality. You can say I’m a dreamer I guess, but dreams will always be dreams if you don’t act upon them.
At the same time though, I wish I could mute the noise. The buzz is incessant. It’s there to bother you when you don’t want to be bothered, taking you on a wild ride around and around and around until it spins out of control. It feeds on my worries, failures and fears. I call this The Cycle. Because the only way out is down. And down is a very hard place to be.
In the end, I sometimes wonder how life would be if there was no noise in my head. Would my life be as rich?