I didn’t sit down to write a story. I sat down to make the noise stop.

The noise is not dramatic. It doesn’t scream. It hums like a refrigerator you only notice at night, when everything else has gone quiet and you’re left alone with the fact that your thoughts have been pacing all day and forgot how to sit.

So I opened a blank page. Not because I had something to say, but because the page didn’t ask me any questions.

At first, nothing happened. Just the cursor blinking, patient and smug. I stared back like this was a standoff I could win through stubbornness alone. Eventually, I typed a sentence I didn’t believe in. Then another. Then I deleted both, because lying felt louder than silence.

What came next wasn’t a plot. It was a feeling. The kind that doesn’t fit neatly into language and resists being named, like it knows labels are a trap. It sat there, heavy and familiar, waiting for me to stop pretending I was in control.

Characters arrived the way they always do—unannounced and mildly inconvenient. One of them was tired. Another was pretending not to be. Neither of them wanted a redemption arc. They wanted coffee, honesty, and for someone to stop telling them everything would make sense later.

I let them talk.

They said things I’d been avoiding. About how wanting something doesn’t mean you’ll get it. About how being “fine” can become a full-time job if you’re not careful. About how sometimes growth looks less like transformation and more like learning how to sit with discomfort without immediately reaching for a distraction.

Halfway through, I laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because one of the characters pointed out a truth so obvious it felt rude. The kind of observation that makes you pause and think, wow, I really built my entire personality around not dealing with that.

The story didn’t resolve. It didn’t wrap itself up in a satisfying conclusion or offer a lesson you could stitch onto a throw pillow. It ended the way most honest things do mid-thought, slightly unfinished, but real enough to stay with you.

When I leaned back, the noise was still there. Quieter, though. Manageable. Like it had been heard and decided that was enough for now.

This is what writing is for me. Not escape. Not answers. Just a place to put the feelings so they stop knocking on the inside of my skull like they’ve lost their keys.

I saved the file without a title. Titles imply confidence, and I wasn’t feeling brave enough to name it yet.

Maybe later.

For now, it was enough to have written something true even if it was messy, even if it didn’t behave, even if it laughed at me a little on the way out.