The Noise in My Head

Lena sat at her desk, staring at the same page for twenty minutes.

Her teacher's words from yesterday kept repeating in her mind: "You can do better." She knew the teacher meant well, but the sentence had turned into a heavy stone inside her chest.

After class, she walked to the school garden and sat on a quiet bench.

An old gardener was pulling weeds nearby, humming softly.

Lena finally said, "I can't stop thinking about my mistakes." The gardener looked up and smiled.

"When I pull weeds, I don't shout at them.

I just remove them, one by one." Lena frowned, not understanding at first.

Then she realized that her thoughts were like weeds too.

She could notice them without fighting them.

That evening, she wrote three lines in a small notebook: what happened, what she felt, and what she could try tomorrow.

Writing did not erase her worry, but it made the noise in her head quieter.