Why I Shrug More (and also a slight explanation of my random outbursts of noise. if you have experienced these, please forgive me.)

I'm not saying as much as I used to.

I think I'm a fairly talkative person. I say stuff in response to other stuff, make conversation and make people laugh. But I'm finding that recently I'm starting to quiet down.

It's not in a respectful, growing-up kind of way, like that obnoxious loud kid that finally shuts up and everybody's like, oh hey, he's a pretty nice dude now. I'm just kind of mumbling to a halt.

Maybe it's because my thoughts are getting louder and I'm scared others can hear them.

Being quiet doesn't mean I'm listening: asking questions does. At least for me. That's what I always find so scary about quiet people, especially people who weren't always quiet. What scares me more though is that I can now do something I have never been able to do:

Pretend to be listening when I'm not.

It depends less on what's being said and more on who's saying it. Depending on the speaker, my thoughts will go something like this:

I'm starting to have entire conversations with myself in my head. And it's getting weird. I'll have whole sentences and speeches planned out and written, and I'm nodding and smiling and (usually) I'm listening. I liked being quiet when I could pay attention. I could sit back and watch the world turn and hear and see and take note of things, which really, I still do now.

But I'm just not talking.

I just don't feel like it.

Maybe it's because what I'm always about to say is never really worth saying. Maybe my thoughts have grown too strange to escape, and I don't know the damage they would do if they ever got out. Maybe I kind of like hiding inside myself.


Or maybe I'm just scared.