There are days when I feel as though my mind was assembled with different instructions than everyone else’s. As if somewhere along the way, I missed a quiet memo about how thoughts are supposed to line up neatly, wait their turn, and exit the mouth only after being fully introduced. Mine do not wait. They tumble. They rush. They leap before I’ve even realised they were standing at the edge.
I speak before I think, or perhaps more truthfully, I think out loud because my thoughts refuse to stay contained. Words spill from me like water from an overfilled glass, urgent and unfiltered, as though my brain is afraid that if they linger too long, they will disappear entirely. Sometimes I hear myself talking and only afterward understand what I meant. Processing comes later, trailing behind my speech like a breath I forgot to take.
It can feel embarrassing, this way of being. As though my mind is always slightly ahead of my control, dancing when it is expected to march. I replay conversations in my head, wishing I had paused, wishing I had rearranged my sentences before releasing them into the world. But my thoughts are restless creatures. They do not enjoy cages. They want air. They want motion. They want to be known immediately.
My hunger for knowledge is born from the same place. I ask questions not to challenge, not to pry, but to understand where I am standing. Curiosity is how I orient myself in the world. Each question is a small lantern I light, trying to make sense of shadows that others seem to navigate effortlessly. When I ask, when I learn, when I gather pieces of information like shells from a shore, I feel momentarily grounded. Less invisible. Less like a spare part rattling inside a machine that wasn’t built for me.
Questions help me process emotions, too. Feelings arrive unannounced, loud and layered, and I must sort through them the only way I know how, by naming them, circling them, studying their edges. Knowledge gives me something solid to hold when emotions feel too big, too fast, too much. It makes me feel useful, as though understanding itself is a contribution, even if no one else notices the quiet work happening behind my eyes.
At home, this need for clarity takes a physical shape. Objects must belong somewhere. Surfaces must breathe. When things scatter across countertops, when order dissolves into visual noise, my mind follows suit. Chaos on the outside echoes loudly inside me. Tidiness is not about perfection or control, it is about peace. It is about giving my thoughts fewer obstacles to trip over. When everything is in its place, my brain exhales. It feels safer to exist.
I know the world often expects minds to move in straight lines. Mine loops, spirals, darts, and doubles back. It is both exhausting and beautiful. I notice details others pass by. I connect ideas that seem unrelated. I feel deeply, think loudly, and care intensely. Even when it makes me feel out of sync, even when I wish I could slow myself down, there is a strange magic in how alive my mind is.
Perhaps my brain does not work the way it should, if “should” means predictable and contained. But maybe it works the way it needs to. Maybe speaking before thinking is just thinking in motion. Maybe asking questions is an act of survival. Maybe my need for order is a form of self-kindness in a world that feels perpetually overwhelming.
I am learning, slowly, to stop apologising for the way my mind moves. To see it not as a flaw, but as a different rhythm. One that stumbles sometimes, yes, but also dances in ways I would miss if I were anyone else. And on the days when I feel useless, I remind myself that understanding, caring, and trying to make sense of the world is not nothing. It is its own quiet, persistent kind of brilliance.
Until next time,
Toodle pip, 
Yours, Lainey.

🤔