Girl Overboard

You spend enough time around people and you start to notice how often they talk about peace like it’s the ultimate goal. Soft mornings. Early nights. Clean kitchens. Balanced lives. Calm minds. Everyone trying to quiet themselves down enough to finally feel okay.

And I think I’ve always wanted the opposite.

Not because chaos is fun, or is it? - but chaos is loud. And loudness drowns things out. Music too loud in your headphones, cigarettes burned down to the filter outside pubs at midnight, plans made last minute because standing still for too long starts to feel dangerous. Constant movement. Constant noise. Constant distraction.

And I don't think I understand the desire for quiet, for stillness.

Loud and chaos are reminders, and they make you feel alive, and part of something, and stop you focusing on the things you try to hide, the things you try to forget, or the things you spend your whole life running from, avoiding, pretending don't exist.

Because if things ever go quiet, properly quiet, then there’s nothing left to hide inside.

No noise to disappear into.

No drama to blame.

No mess to focus on instead.

Just you.

And I think that’s the part I hate the most.

Because when everything stops, when the nights end and everyone goes home and your phone finally dies and there’s no conversation left to carry you through it, there’s this awful moment where you’re alone with yourself and you have to ask the question you’ve been avoiding for years:

Okay then. What’s left?

I think maybe I’ve spent so long trying to become versions of myself that other people could tolerate that I lost track of what was underneath all of it. Maybe I became loud to hide the gaps I don't know how to fill, to draw attention away from the flaws I hope no one notices. Maybe I am reckless because I don't want to admit I fear disappointment, like if I'm so open about not caring about the consequences, I'll start to believe that they don't matter, that I'm okay with anything.

Maybe I don’t know who I am because I’ve spent so long pretending to be someone else.

And after a while the performance becomes automatic. You stop knowing which parts are real and which parts were survival. You become whatever the room needs you to be. Funny enough to stay invited. Detached enough to not get hurt. Chaotic enough to seem interesting. Soft enough to be forgiven for it afterwards.

Too much.

Too loud.

Too emotional.

Too chaotic.

Too impulsive.

Too difficult.

Always too much.

And somehow, at the exact same time, never enough either.

Not responsible enough.

Not reliable enough.

Not organised enough.

Not successful enough.

Not stable enough.

Not good enough.

It’s strange, really, how the same people can make you feel both excessive and insufficient all at once. Like you take up too much space while still somehow failing to fully arrive anywhere.

So you keep moving.

You keep filling every silence with something — another drink, another person, another night out, another almost-version of yourself — because stopping means reflection, and reflection means seeing yourself clearly, and maybe you’re terrified there’s nothing solid there to see.

But sometimes I wonder if the exhaustion comes not from being too much, but from constantly trying not to be.

Maybe the chaos isn’t the problem.

Maybe it’s the hiding.

Maybe one day the quiet won’t be so deafening.