Adventure in Voice Control

I was a loud kid. In the way that all kids are loud. The way that kids seem to have no control of the volume of their voices. The way they shout that they want sprinkles to their mom who is holding them in their arms. The way the shout that they have to pee. The way they shout secrets.

But I was also a loud teenager. I was a loud college student too. I slowly grew quieter as college went on, but when I started I was obnoxious. I was awful. It wasn’t that I just shouted everything in my head, but I thought no one was listening to me. The truth is, most people weren’t. I made the same joke three or four times until someone heard it. Because I spent a lot of time with other loud people. Louder people than me.

I felt like I had to be funny all of the time. That I had to be loud to get people to notice me. And in a lot of ways I did. There were people who looked to me to say things even when I didn’t have things to say. So I said things. Things that didn’t matter. Things that didn’t mean anything. Just to say things.

I never wanted to miss things. I went to every event, even if it was stupid.

People that knew me 10 years ago or even 5 wouldn’t believe it, and many of them don’t. But in my 26 years I’ve slowed down. My friends now may not even really notice. They don’t notice that I’ve slowed because they didn’t know my life was so fast before. That my head and my heart were running in the race to see how quickly I could lose.

I’m slower now. I’ve stopped. In my last three jobs they’ve called me the ninja. They never knew when I showed up. I’d get made fun of for not talking enough, but I didn’t have anything to say.

When I moved to Huntington a couple of years ago to work for the paper, I moved in with two girls I barely knew. And it was perfect. Because Melissa and I became close over our mutual disdain for leaving home. We became close over lots of things, but it was our desire to stay in that grew us together. Which is what I needed. I was this raging extrovert that was taken down by life and morphed into an introvert. All of these things pouring into my life quieted me. And continue to quiet me.

I don’t want to talk anymore. Not unless I need to.