I did not know

A brief account of the week.

Went past the shop I always go into and simply did not go in. Not resisted. Did not occur to me. I stood outside for a moment afterwards trying to work out what had happened.

The hum is back, quieter. I panicked when it started returning and Jonah pointed out, mildly, that nobody had promised it was permanent.

Something has gone quiet and it took me weeks to be able to name it. There was a running commentary in my head about food — what was in the house, what I would have later, whether I would manage not to — and it has stopped. Thirty years of that, and it has just stopped.

I did not know other people did not have this. That is the part I keep turning over. I assumed everybody was doing the same negotiation all day and simply not mentioning it.

The quiet is not the same as peace. It has left a space, and the space has other things in it that I had been keeping the noise on top of.

More thinking required.