‘I felt… fine’: How forgetting my earphones changed my life

I love my earphones, not because I hate people - I just hate interacting with them. They make noise, they move, they even breathe. Not that it’s wrong to breathe, that’s okay, it’s allowed - just not my air. My earphones protect me from all this.

But, on a serious note, I’d been planning to leave my earphones at home for a day to see what difference it would make - but I kept procrastinating. And then, one day, I actually forgot them. With only four minutes to catch the bus, there was no going back - this was the day.