Riding on the Metro

I have been trying to find a way to explain something that is hard to put into words — not because it is dramatic, but because it is simply constant.

Some people can sit on the metro and do three things at once: listen to music, text on their phone, and have a conversation — while the world moves around them like background noise.

I used to assume everyone experienced it the way I do, and that I was just… bad at handling it.

But I am learning that what is “background” for some people is foreground for me.

When I am in a crowded place, I am not just seeing it. My whole nervous system is sucking it in like a sponge.

It is the hum of the train.
The flicker of lights.
The vibrations through the seat and floor.
The shifting smells of perfume, detergent, cold air, wet wool, coffee.
The emotional energy of people — tiredness, tension, impatience, joy — all of it moving through the space like invisible weather.

And it is not that any single thing is unbearable.

It is that it all arrives at once.

My brain does not filter it neatly. It does not automatically sort sounds, smells and faces into “important” and “ignore.” Some days I can handle it, and I even love it — the texture of life, the vividness, the aliveness of the world.

Other days I short circuit and need to escape.

Not in an “I hate people” way. Not in a “look at me, I am special” way. Just in a very real, biological way.

It is like being in a room where the volume is turned up so high that even beautiful music becomes noise. Eventually your body does not care if the input is good or bad — it just needs silence.

So yes, sometimes I stay home. Or choose quiet over plans.

Sometimes I need to step away from the swirl. Not because I am fragile or judging anyone else for living easily in loud spaces. But because my experience of the world is intense — and my peace matters.

I do not really have “pet peeves,” because I cannot say that I experience life as a series of little annoyances. I experience it as waves: sensory waves, emotional waves, energy waves.

There are days that these waves knock me over. Sometimes they feel like sunlight. Other times they are electrical storms.

Either way, it is my life.

And I am grateful to be here, experiencing it.

I am learning how to live in it without drowning. Or getting electrocuted.