Feeling the world
Speak: Piece 3
Once upon a time, I felt dumb. I felt like the way I viewed the world was strange, like my mind operated in a different way than everyone else’s. People told me my ideas were stupid, unrealistic, too abstract to be taken seriously. I started to believe them. Maybe I was just lost in my own head, too caught up in thoughts that didn’t make sense to anyone but me.
But deep down, I knew that wasn’t true. I wasn’t some daydreamer detached from reality-I was the opposite. I was aware of the world, of the little things most people ignored. I noticed the way the sky changed color before a storm, the way a song could carry the weight of an entire memory, the way certain places held the echoes of people who had long since left. I could feel the world. It wasn’t just something I lived in, it was something that lived in me.
I felt it in my chest, like a pulse that wasn’t mine but belonged to everything around me. I could hear it in music, in lyrics that spoke truths I hadn’t yet put into words. I could smell it, even with my eyes closed, the scent of rain on pavement or the bittersweet air of a place I’d never been but somehow recognized. I moved through life like a leaf on a river, floating, drifting, never fully stable to one place or idea.
I still do.
I walk and observe as if I’m invisible, as if I’m merely passing through other people’s lives rather than existing within my own. I absorb their stories, their gestures, the way their expressions shift when they think no one is watching. It’s like I live a thousand different lives all at once-not through direct experience, but through imagination, through emotions buried so deep inside me that I don’t even know where they came from.
It reminds me of how, after watching a good movie, people carry its essence with them for days. They act like they’re inside that story, like they’re still living in its world. The emotions, the thoughts, the moments—it all lingers, shaping their reality even after the credits roll. That’s how I feel all the time. Every song, every interaction, every fleeting moment leaves an imprint on me, like I’m constantly walking through a world that is both real and imagined.
Maybe that’s why people didn’t understand me. Maybe that’s why they called me weird. But I’ve come to realize that feeling the world so deeply isn’t a flaw. It’s a gift. And if that makes me different, then I’m okay with that.
Tonia Tsaousi, 17 years old