I was going to write something else. Something light, maybe. A list of favorite apps. A movie that made me cry. A post that didn’t require peeling my brain like a fruit. But here we are again.
I opened the document, stared at the blinking cursor, and felt it, the slow turning of a key in a door I never locked.
He’s back. My roommate.
He doesn’t pay rent. He leaves dishes in the sink. He rearranges my thoughts when I’m not looking. He calls himself “helpful”. He’s not. At least, that’s what I tell people.
But Lately, I’ve been wondering. What if he’s more than just noise? What if overthinking, all of this mess, is a superpower in disguise?
“Just checking in,” he says, from the right corner of my mind. “Did you mean what you said in that conversation two weeks ago?”, “Did you notice her tone shift?”, “Are you really sure you want to post this?” “What if this blog becomes the one people remember you for? What if it’s too honest? Or not honest enough?”
I look up, and somehow, he’s already typing.
It’s not just “thinking a lot.” It’s like a mental browser with 43 tabs open, five of them are playing music, and you don’t know where it’s coming from.
One tab is a memory from 2018. Another is a conversation I might have next week. A third is asking me if I locked the door.
And the others? They’re all just mirrors. Showing me versions of myself I can’t ignore.
My roommate says he’s keeping me safe. From embarrassment. From failure. From Spontaneity. But what he’s really dong is building simulations. Endless, looping simulations.
What if I had spoken up? What if I didn’t? What if they think I’m annoying? What if they forget me? What if I’m too much? What if I’m not enough?
And here’s the twist: “He’s not always wrong” He’s predicted things before. He caught the change in tone. He replayed the conversation enough times to find what was wrong. He helped me survive things I didn’t know I was walking into.
Maybe he’s not just a wrecker. Maybe he’s a strategist. A mapmaker. A shadow that shields as well as haunts.
But here’s the price:
You can’t fly if you’re always scanning the ground for traps.
You can’t love if you’re always looking at every sentence for hidden meanings.
You can’t rest if you treat silence like a crime scene.
He likes asking questions. Not to answer them, just to fill the silence. Silence scares him. He says quiet means I’m not paying attention. That I’ll miss the moment. That I’ll mess something up.
He doesn’t believe in “let it go.” He believes in holding it tighter until it break and turn into a thousand spinning possibilities.
The worst part? Sometimes I think I am him. I don’t know where he ends and I begin.
He talks so much, I’ve started to move my lips when he’s whispering. He wakes me up before alarms. He finishes my sentences. He tells me I’m not paranoid, just prepared. (prepared for what? just shut up)
So, is overthinking a superpower in disguise? Maybe. But even superpowers have weaknesses. Even heroes burn out. I guess it depends who’s in control.
I was going to write something else. Something simple. Something still. But my roommate doesn’t like stillness. He doesn’t like blanks or pauses or windows with no tabs. He wants noise.
So he wrote this instead. I guess I just watched. Sorry for the mess.