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It was so quiet. Whenever a person walked though the house you could clearly hear their footsteps - there was no noise to cover it. A fly was a thrilling competition to swat. Thrill was rare. I did craft projects, I read, I did all the things adults tell you to do when you say you're bored (although I rarely said I was bored - I thought my boredom went without saying) but not because I was such a good kid. I did it because it was the only option. "Why don't you invite a friend over?" I did. Then they'd go home. And it almost made it worse, the quiet was so, so much worse when I had something to compare it too. My favorite thing to do was to go over to my friend's houses. Perhaps my favorite game when I was little was pretending. So while we played a pretending game, at some level I would pretend that I lived there too. Not to anyone else, and I wouldn't act on it. Just to me, I would pretend - or perhaps a better word for it is imagine - I lived there.

And it's not natural. Kids aren't supposed to be in silence. Kids are meant to be a hubbub, with other kids. Silence is for adults, who need peace and quiet to relieve their stress.

It's really no something I can think about, I keep it locked in a box in the back of my mind. But it pushes and fights and struggles to get out of the box; and sometimes it does. Once every few years. Then I might wake up crying in the night, feeling like the most alone person in the world, then go back to sleep and no one ever knows. Other times, I cry on and off for days. People ask me what's wrong and I just shake my head mutely, because I can't tell them. If I did, they'd just scoff. I don't think I could put it into words anyhow, and I don't think I could get my mouth to speak in moments like that. And I don't even want them to see me crying, I don't want anyone to know. The only reason they're seeing me cry is because I truly can't stop.

When I was little, I think I did have a slightly glorified idea of what having siblings would be like. I know that it really sucks in a lot of ways. But quiet, quiet that catches at the air in your throat, so quiet you can barely breath - nothing could be worse than that. I'd pay any disadvantages for it to end.