TinNOtus

Say NO To Tinnitus

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Welcome to The Buzz

A space for real stories, honest reflections, and small victories from life with tinnitus and hearing loss.

Here you’ll find comfort, perspective, and maybe even a laugh or two as we learn to live a little more peacefully with that damn noise.

A Love Letter to the Quiet Moments That Still Exist — Even With Tinnitus

By Marie

By someone who hasn’t heard actual silence since the 90's, yet somehow still finds it.

My dearest Quiet,

I used to think you were gone.

The day tinnitus moved into my head with its suitcase full of whistles, hums and random unsettling nonsense, I thought you packed up your bags and left too. No goodbye note. No emotional farewell. Just… gone.

For a long time, I mourned you.

Not dramatically. Not in a “lie on the floor in slow motion and my coffee spills everywhere” kind of way.

More like a dull ache. A little grief that whispered,

“Well, that’s that then. Peace has left the building.”

But then, here's the little surprise I didn’t see coming:

You didn’t leave.

You just changed clothes.

You stopped being the soundless void I used to chase. You started appearing in different forms. Quieter ones, softer ones, ones that tinnitus couldn’t touch.

I didn’t recognise you at first.

To be fair, I was too busy panicking and wondering if my brain had turned into a haunted kettle of boiling water that was never meant for a tea bag.

But slowly, you came back to me.

Not as silence, but as something better:

Stillness.

The kind of stillness that appears…

When I sit with a cup of tea and my shoulders drop for the first time all day.
When I’m walking outside and notice my breath syncing with the vibe of nature.
When I stop fighting the noise and my nervous system finally unclenches.
When I’m laughing with someone I love and suddenly forget that tinnitus even exists.
When I catch myself feeling okay… without effort.

That’s you.

You sneaky little git.

Quiet, you are the moment when my mind softens, not when my ears do.

You hide inside the ordinary: the warmth of sunlight on my face, the smell of freshly baked bread, the slow, steady rhythm of a river, the softness of getting into bed after a long day, the way time briefly pauses after a deep breath.

You are peace in motion.

Noise in the background.

Life happening anyway.

You taught me something vital, something tinnitus tried very hard to ruin:

Silence isn’t the only doorway to calm.

You can slip into any moment, any place, any messy loud day, as long as I’m willing to notice you.

Tinnitus may have taken silence from my ears, but it didn’t take quiet from my life. In a way, it forced me to find quiet everywhere else, in the parts of life I used to rush past.

So this is my love letter to you, Quiet. Not the old version of you, the one I used to think I needed. But the new you, the friendly you, the softer you.

The one that lives not in my ears, but in me.

Yours,

even with the ringing,

Marie