The Noise I Carried
776 Words
Before Tavira, before the silence, there was a different kind of quiet.
A dangerous kind.
The kind that curls around your neck at 2 a.m. when even your own breath feels intrusive.
From the outside, my life was fine. Neatly packaged. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the seventh floor of a building that smelled perpetually of fresh paint and forgotten mail. My furniture was modern, unblemished. My coffee maker whirred to life at exactly 6:40 every morning. I worked in tech, software development for a growing AI startup that paid well and prided itself on “agility.” I was good at it, too. Efficient. Clever, even.
But every morning, as I sat in front of dual monitors filled with code and project timelines, I felt like I was slowly sinking. Not drowning, just… descending. Gently. Unremarkably.
It’s strange how many hours of your life can go by like that, sitting still, moving nothing but your fingers, while your soul paces in circles, clawing at invisible walls. I smiled during morning stand-ups. I cracked jokes in Slack. I was the guy who “had it together.” And maybe I did. Maybe that was the problem.
There was no drama. No inciting incident. Just a slow, creeping kind of gray that painted over everything I once enjoyed.
Music, for example.
I used to love it. Not in the cool, curated way people brag about on dating profiles. I loved it viscerally. I’d stay up late with headphones too big for my head, letting vinyl crackle fill my brain like electricity. But somewhere along the line, the songs lost their color. I’d press play on old favorites, but they felt like museum pieces, beautiful, but behind glass. I heard every note, but none of them reached me.
I had friends, too. Good ones, by most measures. We went out on Fridays, clinked glasses at rooftop bars, laughed about things we didn’t care about. I’d welcome them with smiles, hugs, even loud “finally!”s at the door.
But beneath all of it, I felt like a cardboard cutout of myself.
There were weekends when I wouldn’t leave my apartment at all. I’d lie on the couch, lights off, laptop screen dimmed, scrolling through nothing. The fridge would hum beside me like a bored companion. I’d skip meals without realizing. Not out of sadness, just absence.
I wasn’t sad. Not really. I was… removed. Like watching life through a pane of glass smeared with fingerprints. Everyone else moved with such purpose. I moved because I had to.
I used to overthink everything, every message, every decision, every silence. I’d reread my own texts three times before sending them, then replay the conversation afterward like a bad movie. I was so deep in my own head, I forgot what it felt like to simply exist in a moment without measuring it.
Even rest felt performative. I’d light candles, brew herbal tea, open a meditation app, then sit in a puddle of artificial calm while my mind clawed at itself.
There were glimpses of light, sure. A sunset on the walk home. A stranger’s dog pressing its nose into my palm. A memory triggered by the smell of coconut oil. But they were fleeting, and I always forgot them by morning.
It’s easy to mistake survival for living. To believe that just because you can check off the boxes, job, rent, friends, exercise, you’re okay.
But I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t been for a long time.
And yet I couldn’t explain it to anyone. There was no tragedy to point to. Just a slow erosion of self that no one could see.
I kept going. Day after day. Week after week. Because what else was I supposed to do?
The last straw came on a Wednesday.
Nothing dramatic, just a moment.
I was on a Zoom call with the product team, eyes glazed as someone walked through wireframes, when I suddenly imagined myself doing the exact same thing ten years from now.
Same desk. Same voice in my ear. Same version of me, a little older, still smiling at the right moments, still playing the part.
And I felt something crack.
Not loudly. Just enough.
That night, I sat in the shower until the water ran cold. I dried off, opened my laptop, and searched:
"quiet towns in Europe for solo travelers."
Tavira didn’t come up.
Not until later. Not until the French backpacker with the plum. Not until I was ready.
That was my life before.
Clean, organized, professionally successful, and utterly devoid of joy.
No one knew.
Not even me, fully.
Until I left it.
- Writer
