Typically, I don’t like going to the mall by myself. I’ve done it a few times when I need to get something but also needed a bit of quiet in my thoughts. I know, it’s weird that you’d want to quieten your thoughts in a mall, but sometimes that’s just what you need to zone out of whatever ruckus is happening up there. And so, I’ve indulged in it a few times but for the most part, I like to go with people.
So when I found myself at the mall waiting for two hours for my friend (that had practically forced me to come out), I knew that instead of wallowing in the biting feeling of anger and irritation that had already crept up my skin, I needed to find something to do to take myself away from it all. And then I remembered my good old activity. People watching. Or I’d like to call it people-lyzing because I don’t just watch, I analyse. I try, based on their expressions and carriage to think of what their stories must be.
In a country like mine, and I’m sure it’s same for other countries, an activity like that could get you into some serious issues. One, because you don’t want someone that may have been in a bad mood already to go ballistic on you for staring. And two, you don’t want to attract the predators who may think your gaze at them is a show of interest or.... consent.
So, I do mine wisely. I use glasses anyway, so people tend not to see where exactly my eyes are at unless they get close. Somehow doing that drowns the noise. Drowns the itch in my skin from being in public for too long. Drowns my anger. And so I relish it. It’s nice to escape your head for a while and focus on a story that is not about you. Hence, a welcome past time. I try to control it as well and not focus on one person for too long because one, you don’t want to attract attention and two, my crazily imaginative brain might analyze a person till the story becomes way too sad or close to home for comfort.
My family house is in a rural area so I’ve been used to quiet for so long. But then there was an occasion where I needed to stay at my friend’s place for a while. The noise unnerved me. All day and night, horns blaring and trucks speeding past. I wondered how she’d been able to cope with it and when I asked her, she shrugged and said, “You get used to it.” And so, I tried to get used to it. And I was beginning to lose my mind because I kept failing at it. It was like I couldn’t think or process things anymore cause the noise was all up in my head. Consuming my thoughts and mind.
I couldn’t leave because I still had things to do and I remember clearly that at one point, I broke down. And when my friend saw me, she said a lot of things but the summary of it was, that I should stop pushing against it. She said most times we can’t move forward or breeze through something because we’ve refused to accept its reality. That I’m fighting so hard to pretend the noise is not there and that’s why it’s affecting me like this.
So, she said to breathe. Bask in the moment. Accept the sights and the noise and the ruckus. Accept the reality that it’s there and not going away, so that my life wouldn’t be revolved around its existence, rather I would be able to exist amicably alongside it. I’m not sure if I’m putting it in the best words but that’s what I heard and that’s how I began to live from then on. It wasn’t a switch where the blaring horns began to sound like music in my ears. Not at all. I just began to breathe easier around it.
And that’s how I dealt with the chaos. That’s how I still deal with chaos. Whether the physical ones or the emotional ones that could be quite suffocating. I breathe through it. Slowly living. I don’t deny the existence of this problem. I accept the fact that this is the reality and this, in fact, happened. So working to exist alongside it in the best way possible becomes easier to do. Becomes more peaceful.
Images are mine.
