UnlearningSilence.blog

I sometimes wonder what would happen if we could see inside each other’s minds. Not the version of ourselves that we present to the world, but the actual thoughts moving through our heads at any given moment. We spend so much time judging people by what we can see: the woman rushing through a train station, the man sitting quietly in a café, the parent collecting a child from school. Yet none of us can see the dozens of conversations, memories, worries, plans and emotions that exist beneath the surface. Most of the time, we are all carrying far more than anybody around us realises.

Last week, I found myself thinking about this while rushing through Waterloo Station on my way to a girls’ trip. The trip itself had taken a surprising amount of effort to reach. The day before, I had worked most of the day and well into the night. The next morning began with client calls, emails and last-minute tasks. At the same time, I was trying to finish packing, check train times and make sure I had not forgotten anything important. Alongside all of that, I was carrying a separate running commentary in my head about my children. Would the boys be alright? Did they have everything they needed? Perhaps I should organise a trip for them as well. It felt selfish to go away myself without taking them somewhere. I would organise something when I got back, I decided.

By the time I arrived at Waterloo, my mind was moving considerably faster than my body. One friend was already waiting at the station. Messages were arriving asking where I was. The train would not wait for me. As I hurried towards the escalator, I was mentally reviewing emails I could no longer do anything about, wondering whether I had forgotten something important, calculating how much time remained before departure and reassuring myself that the boys would be perfectly fine without me for a weekend.

Then, as I stepped onto the escalator, Rude by Magic! started playing through my headphones.

If you are not familiar with the song, it is essentially a cheerful reggae-pop anthem about a young man asking a father for permission to marry his daughter and being rather unwilling to accept “no” as a final answer.

Years ago, after I jokingly informed an ex-boyfriend that he would need my mother’s permission before dating me, he adopted the song as his unofficial response. Whenever the subject came up, he would grin and start singing.

For reasons known only to my brain, hearing it again immediately transported me several years into the past. It had been a long time since I had thought about that conversation. Yet there he was again, summoned by a reggae song in the middle of Waterloo Station.

And then something strange happened.

The thoughts that had been racing uncontrollably around my head only moments before seemed to surrender to the rhythm of the song. The emails stopped charging around demanding attention. The worries about the boys stopped interrupting one another. The mental checklists loosened their grip. Instead of pulling me in a dozen different directions at once, everything began moving to the same beat.

Can you imagine? Thoughts dancing reggae. It sounds completely absurd when written down. Standing on that escalator, however, it felt entirely reasonable.

As the song played, I could almost see my thoughts floating around me. The unfinished emails drifted past like dancers at a festival. My concerns about the boys swayed gently from side to side. The packing list twirled in circles. Even guilt, usually so serious and determined, seemed to have relaxed and joined in.

And there, somehow in charge of the whole production, was a miniature version of my ex. Not just singing, but conducting, with the confidence of someone who had spent years preparing for exactly this moment.

He danced his way through the chaos, waving an imaginary conductor’s baton and encouraging every anxious thought to join the performance. The worries harmonised. The responsibilities found their rhythm. The mental clutter that had spent the morning fighting for my attention suddenly became a surprisingly well-organised orchestra.

Standing there on the escalator, watching this absurd little scene unfold inside my head, I had the distinct feeling that my brain had finally given up trying to control everything and decided instead to stage a musical.

As I travelled upwards on the escalator, I found myself thinking about the station’s name. Waterloo. Named after one of the most famous battles in European history. I briefly wondered what French visitors think when they arrive in London and discover that one of the city’s busiest railway stations commemorates one of France’s most famous defeats. Maybe nobody else finds this amusing. Standing there on the escalator, however, I thought it was quite funny.

Then it occurred to me that Waterloo was perhaps the perfect place to be standing.

After all, a battle was taking place.

Not between nations, but inside my own head.

The solicitor was reviewing unfinished emails. The mother was thinking about her children. The planner was already organising future holidays. The friend was worried about keeping everyone waiting. The traveller was trying to remember whether she had packed everything she needed. Somewhere in the background, guilt was questioning whether she should have gone away at all.

Meanwhile, a miniature reggae singer had somehow seized control of proceedings and was turning the entire thing into a concert.

At first, I found this mildly irritating. I already had enough people in my head without inviting additional guests. But as I stood there listening to the song, something unexpected happened. The entire situation became absurdly funny.

I started smiling. Then I had to stop myself from laughing out loud.

The people around me probably saw a reasonably organised woman making her way through a busy London station. They saw someone travelling to meet friends for a weekend away. What they did not see was the extraordinary chaos unfolding inside her mind. They did not see the battle. They did not see the memories. They did not see the tiny reggae singer who had somehow become the unofficial master of ceremonies.

Looking back, what stays with me is not the rush to catch the train or even the trip itself. What I remember is the moment when my anxiety briefly transformed into something funny. Nothing had changed. The emails still existed. The responsibilities still existed. My concerns about the boys still existed. Yet for a few moments, I stopped fighting with my thoughts and simply observed them.

Perhaps that is why the memory has stayed with me.

We spend so much of our lives carrying responsibilities that we stop noticing their weight. Work, family, relationships, deadlines, plans and expectations become so familiar that they feel like part of us. Every now and then, however, life interrupts the seriousness of it all. A song starts playing. An old memory appears. Something completely unexpected cuts through the noise. For a brief moment, instead of carrying our thoughts, we stand back and watch them.

And sometimes, if we are lucky, they are ridiculous enough to make us laugh.

Last week, somewhere between the Battle of Waterloo and Platform 10, mine certainly did.

The train was caught. The girls’ trip was wonderful. The boys survived perfectly well without me. The emails were still there when I came back.

As for the tiny reggae singer, I eventually left him behind on the escalator. Or perhaps I didn’t. Perhaps he is still somewhere inside my head, waiting patiently for the next inconvenient moment to make an appearance.

If he does, I suspect he will have exactly the same message as before.

Take the trip anyway.

Looking back, I think that is what I remember most about that morning. Not the rushing, the worrying or the endless mental checklists. What I remember is the moment everything stopped fighting for my attention and started moving to the same rhythm.

It was the moment my thoughts started dancing reggae.

It was the day my anxiety started dancing.