The Day I Thought I Was Annoying (I Was Just Tired)
I said sorry eleven times before lunch, and I had not done anything.
I said sorry to a boy for standing near a door. I said sorry to the librarian for asking a question. I said sorry to my own backpack, quietly, when I knocked it off a chair, and then I wondered if that meant I was losing my mind.
The real trouble began in third period. Our group was planning a science project, and I had a lot of ideas. I explained them quickly, with my hands. Then Tariq sighed, a small, tired, exhale kind of sigh, and looked at the clock.
It was a very ordinary sigh. To me, it sounded like a verdict.
I talk too much. I take over. I am exhausting. Everyone has been politely waiting for me to stop since the fourth grade.
I went quiet for the rest of the class, which felt like the most considerate thing I could do for the world. I wrote nothing on my paper. I wrote annoying in the margin, three times, and then I crossed it out so nobody would see it.
What if everyone is tired of me?
What if I’m too much?
Why can’t I just be easier to be around?
A tired brain writes terrible reviews
Zoe found me on the school steps after class, sitting with my knees pulled up and my chin on my arms. I told her all of it, including the margin.
She listened without saying a word, which is one of her superpowers. Then she asked something I did not expect.
“What time did you go to sleep last night?”
“I don’t know. Late. Maybe one?”
“And when did you wake up?”
“Six. I had to finish the poster.”
“Did you have breakfast?”
I thought about it. “A cracker. I think a cracker.”
Zoe nodded slowly, like a doctor who has finally found the case file. “Okay. So you’ve had five hours of sleep and a cracker, and your brain is now writing a review of your whole personality.”
“It’s not a review,” I said. “It’s the truth.”
“Lina.” She said it very gently. “A tired brain writes terrible reviews. They are always one star. They are always unfair. And they always sound exactly like the truth.”
· · ·
The battery check
Zoe unfolded a tiny sticky note and drew a rectangle with a little bump at one end. It was a battery. She divided it into four sections and labeled them with the smallest handwriting in the world.
“Before you judge yourself,” she said, “you check your battery. Four questions. Slept? Ate? Drank? Quiet? If any of them are empty, you are not allowed to decide anything about yourself. You are only allowed to recharge.”
“What if I do decide?”
“Then you write the verdict down and you reopen the case tomorrow, after a snack and a good night. Verdicts made on low battery are not valid. It’s the law.” She said it so seriously that I laughed, and the laugh surprised me, because I had thought I was too heavy to laugh.
We went to the bakery across the street. Zoe made me eat a whole cinnamon roll and drink an entire glass of water, and for ten minutes we did not talk about anything important at all.
The second review
The next morning, I slept nine hours. I ate eggs and toast. I was, to my great surprise, a person with a normal-sized brain again.
I looked at my notebook margin. Annoying, annoying, annoying, crossed out in angry pen. It looked like it had been written by a stranger who had been up all night, which, in fact, it had.
In class, I braced myself for third period. Tariq came over before it started, and I thought, here it comes.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry about yesterday. I think I was falling asleep. My little brother had a nightmare and I was up from three. I loved your idea about the plant experiment, by the way. Can we do that one?”
I stared at him. The sigh had been a three AM sigh. It had never been about me.
I stuck Zoe’s battery note on my bedroom wall, next to the lamp. When I notice the old verdict starting, I’m annoying, I’m too much, I check it. Slept? Ate? Drank? Quiet? More often than not, a box is empty, and the verdict can wait.
I still say sorry too much, sometimes. But I’m learning to say thank you for waiting instead of sorry for existing. It turns out those two sentences feel very different in the mouth, and in the chest.
On the days when I really am a bit too loud, I’ve learned something else. People can say so, kindly, and the world doesn’t end. And on the days when I am simply tired, I am allowed to go to bed early and be wrong about myself until morning.
With love,
Lina
