Different Frequencies

some loves don’t vanish. they just drift out of range.

Oct 23, 2025

At breakfast my mother asked why I don’t call more.
I said I’m busy.
She said I’ve changed.
And maybe she’s right.
Maybe I just tuned out.

Sometimes it feels like we’re all radios tuned to slightly different stations.
Same room.
Same air.
Different music.

Her voice cuts in and out.
Like a song halfway lost between towers.
I can hear the shape of love in it.
But not the words.

With my parents, the signal skips. They ask about work, not wonder.
Numbers, not nights spent staring at the ceiling trying to remember who I am when nobody’s looking.
They love me, I know that.
But their love is AM. All static and weather and old songs about duty.
Mine runs FM. Soft distortion. A little pain in the bass. Too much truth in the treble.

Family dinners feel like foreign films with no subtitles.
Everyone laughs on cue, but I can’t always tell why.
The jokes slide past me.
I nod anyway, pretending I caught the translation.

Later, alone, Holocene plays.
Bon Iver murmurs, “And at once I knew I was not magnificent.”
And something in me caves.
Because he’s right. It’s not grandeur I’m missing.
It’s belonging.
That quiet hum of being understood without translation.

I can feel the space between us like a pressure in my chest.
A slow tightening.
The ache of being almost-heard.

Friends. God, I love them.
But some are tuned for noise. Parties. Small talk. Temporary highs.
And I’m the one who wants silence loud enough to feel something in.
Who wants to ask what you dream about when you’re sober and scared.
That kind of frequency clears the room.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the one out of tune.
If I turned the dial too far chasing peace.
If it’s me that’s hard to hear.

Still, there are the rare ones.
The ones whose frequency hits mine like a pulse.
Where words don’t have to translate.
Where everything just tunes in.

I don’t blame the rest.
We all hear what we’re built to bear.
And maybe that’s mercy, not failure.

Maybe we don’t fall out of love.
Maybe we just drift out of range.

And Holocene fades out soft, leaving only static.
I don’t move.
I just sit there, listening to the nothing.
Hoping one day someone hears the same silence I do.
And sometimes, when the night’s quiet enough,
the signal clears for a moment.
And I swear I hear home again.