What I’ve said to myself about needing to be understood was a lie

A thought for anyone who’s tired of subtitling their own life

Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to stop translating yourself into a language that was never meant for you. Most of us have done it—smoothing the edges, swapping out the words, trying to make ourselves legible to people who were never really listening.

I’ve done it more times than I can count, convincing myself it was a necessity, clarity, or maturity. It feels safer that way, until you realise the price is your own voice, and once you get bored listening to your own voice, you can already see the end of the path.

This piece isn’t an argument. It’s a short letter for anyone who’s tired of subtitling their own life—and to the times we scrub ourselves thin.

What I’ve said to myself about needing to be understood was a lie.

Not a white lie, not a lie anyone would ever haul you over the coals for, but a word-laundry softener, a safety blanket woven from disguise threads, a self-preservation dressed up as honesty because it’s easier to believe you missed a step than to face the truth that everyone heard you and simply shrugged.

They understood me just fine. They just didn’t want what I was carrying to the table.

That’s the part I tripped over; kept thinking I should sand it down, dip it in honey, translate it into their language. They nodded at the translation, but I know now, they were listening for their own reflection, and I have no say in what they choose to see in it.

So, I’ve retired from the subtitling business. Got tired of sanding off the edges, flattening, frosting, and clinical-ing the curious.

I’m talking in my own dialect now, and there’s no quiz at the end.

The strange thing is, the moment their approval stopped mattering, my voice stopped echoing—and settled into my mouth. The spaces between words are filled with oxygen, not with held breaths.

I didn’t need them to understand me.

I needed me not to abandon myself while they were busy not listening.

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I write about things that don’t always introduce themselves as related, but they appear to ferment quietly somewhere near, then rise up and leak into my writing before I can stop them. I’ve tried tightening the lids. I’ve tried being less perceptive. It doesn’t work. So, here we are: you'll get my words here, and they may or may not make sense to you, and either way, I could ask, what is sense after all, but a consensus of limited mind, and there’s always something beyond.