I’ve always prided myself on my hearing ability. Maybe it’s better than other people’s, maybe it’s not, but the point is, I think that it is at least better than average.
Growing up, I learned that what I overheard through walls helped me get a better feel for what to expect when I went through a door, and that could make the difference between needing to tiptoe and hide and getting to run around and play.
As I got older, I learned to love secrets. Barely whispered nothings that people thought they were keeping to themselves, but were no match for my self proclaimed highly honed hearing. Out on the town, I began to talk less and less, preferring instead to listen to other people’s conversations, bits of stories that I’d never know otherwise because I’m at best a background character in their lives.
Soon, one conversation wasn’t enough. Maybe the first one I heard wasn’t interesting enough. Maybe I was just worried that no matter how interesting the one I was listening too was, the one I wan’t listening too could be amazing. It became like juggling, bouncing from one conversation to the next to another and back again, keeping them all floating in the air, floating in the air with them. But at some point, it becomes too much.
Instead of running from empty movie theater to empty movie theater, catching glimpses of the show, I was instead thrust into a mosh pit of sound, unable to make any sense of the words I’m hearing, buffeted on a wave of noise that I can’t get myself to stop trying to hear.
There are only two ways I know for sure to quiet it. The first is to leave, to step away to where I can no longer hear the people and the stories and the sound, and collect myself. The other is to drink. When I drink, the voices are silenced and my focus narrows down to one voice, my own, made stupid by the drinking.
On nights like tonight, if I try to stay, and stay sober, another voice joins the chorus, another voice pounding like a drum. Drink. Drink. Drink. Drink. Drink. The pain in my head doesn’t lessen, I can’t focus, even on that one drumbeat. But I know how to stop it. I know how to make it all go away. Drink. Drink. Drink. That voice is terrifying because I know it will eventually break me. Drink. Tonight, I held strong. Tonight, I kept back the cacophony. But I had to leave, before I gave in.
I’ve stopped drinking, for now, because I’m tired of giving in, and I’m tired of being afraid, of that voice, of myself, and of the world around me.
Growing up, I learned that what I overheard through walls helped me get a better feel for what to expect when I went through a door, and that could make the difference between needing to tiptoe and hide and getting to run around and play.
As I got older, I learned to love secrets. Barely whispered nothings that people thought they were keeping to themselves, but were no match for my self proclaimed highly honed hearing. Out on the town, I began to talk less and less, preferring instead to listen to other people’s conversations, bits of stories that I’d never know otherwise because I’m at best a background character in their lives.
Soon, one conversation wasn’t enough. Maybe the first one I heard wasn’t interesting enough. Maybe I was just worried that no matter how interesting the one I was listening too was, the one I wan’t listening too could be amazing. It became like juggling, bouncing from one conversation to the next to another and back again, keeping them all floating in the air, floating in the air with them. But at some point, it becomes too much.
Instead of running from empty movie theater to empty movie theater, catching glimpses of the show, I was instead thrust into a mosh pit of sound, unable to make any sense of the words I’m hearing, buffeted on a wave of noise that I can’t get myself to stop trying to hear.
There are only two ways I know for sure to quiet it. The first is to leave, to step away to where I can no longer hear the people and the stories and the sound, and collect myself. The other is to drink. When I drink, the voices are silenced and my focus narrows down to one voice, my own, made stupid by the drinking.
On nights like tonight, if I try to stay, and stay sober, another voice joins the chorus, another voice pounding like a drum. Drink. Drink. Drink. Drink. Drink. The pain in my head doesn’t lessen, I can’t focus, even on that one drumbeat. But I know how to stop it. I know how to make it all go away. Drink. Drink. Drink. That voice is terrifying because I know it will eventually break me. Drink. Tonight, I held strong. Tonight, I kept back the cacophony. But I had to leave, before I gave in.
I’ve stopped drinking, for now, because I’m tired of giving in, and I’m tired of being afraid, of that voice, of myself, and of the world around me.
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