Two in the morning, and down on the street there were still car horns. One of them held a long note, then another answered back, like they were arguing in the dark. I lay in bed, earplugs in, pillow pressed over my head, and that sound still slipped through, lodging right in the most tired part of me.
That night I couldn't sleep. Like so many nights before it.
I'd only moved to this big city a little over a year ago. And I hated it. Hated how every morning the roads were jammed solid, exhaust in my face, everyone in a rush, everyone honking as if honking would make the street widen on its own. Hated the feeling of being tiny, lost among a few million people where no one knew who I was.
I used to collect reasons to hate it
Back then I did something pretty toxic: I gathered reasons to hate this place.
The horns at midnight were a reason. The expensive rent was a reason. An afternoon rooted in a sea of motorbikes, sweat soaking the back of my shirt, was a reason. I'd come home, shut the door, put my headphones on loud to drown out the street, and tell myself: someday I'll leave here, go somewhere truly quiet, and then I'll be fine.
I lived like someone just temporarily staying inside her own life. Always waiting for another place, another time, to start feeling okay. And this loud present, I just wanted to plug my ears and get through it.
It's exhausting, you know. Not the body kind of tired. The tired of someone who fights the place she's standing in, every single day.
The night I stood at the window
Then one night, sleepless again, I gave up on the bed. I went and stood at the window.
My floor isn't very high, just enough to see the street below. And I just stood there, looking. A late-night motorbike-taxi driver waiting for a fare under a tree, his phone glowing on his face. A small noodle stall still lit, two people eating late, probably just off a shift. A taxi pulling up, someone stepping out, holding a bouquet. The horns still sounded somewhere, but this time I didn't feel them stabbing my ears.
And suddenly I understood something strange. The noise I'd hated all this time — it wasn't noise. It was the sound of a few million people living. Coming home late from work. Waiting for one more ride to earn a little extra. Eating a late meal after a long day. Returning to someone, arms full of flowers.
What I thought was noise wrecking my sleep turned out to be the heartbeat of a city that never stops breathing. And me, standing here, was one of its beats too.
I don't know how to put it right. It's just that in that moment, I stopped seeing myself as an outsider the city was bothering. I saw that I belonged to it. That driver, those two people eating late, and me — we were all just trying to live, at the same time, under the same sky full of lights.
The next morning I still went out, still hit the traffic, still heard the horns. The city hadn't softened at all. It was exactly the same.
Only I was different. I stopped counting reasons to hate it. I started noticing the café with the owner who always smiles, the row of trees on the street I take, the way late sun pours gold over the old walls. Those things had always been there. I'd just been too busy plugging my ears to hear them.
I'm not telling you this to say you should love wherever you live. Maybe the place you're in really doesn't fit you, and leaving is the right thing. I get that.
I'm just wondering, and I want you to ask yourself too: how many things in your life are you hating, enduring, waiting to be over — that actually, if you'd stand still one night and really look, you'd find have been living alongside you, for you, the whole time?
Tonight, if some car horn drifts up, I won't plug my ears anymore. I'll lie there and listen. And know that out there, life is still running, warm and stubborn, even while I sleep.