I was in the shower this morning, arguing with my boss.
He wasn’t there, of course. I was alone. Hot water running down my back. Steam everywhere. And my mouth moving, saying all the things I should have said last Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, he criticized my work in front of everyone. I stood there. Said nothing. Smiled weakly. Nodded. Died a little inside.
But in the shower, I was brilliant. Every word perfect. Every pause calculated. I explained exactly why he was wrong. I made points so clear, so logical, so devastating that he had no choice but to apologize. In the shower, he understood completely. He admitted his mistake. He looked at me with new respect.
The water went cold. I was still talking.
This happens to me every day. I have conversations with people who aren’t there. I win arguments that never happened. I deliver speeches to empty rooms. My mind runs a theater where I am always the hero, always eloquent, always understood.
Do you do this too? I think everyone does. We just don’t talk about it.
In real life, conversations are messy. We forget what we wanted to say. We stumble over words. The other person interrupts. They misunderstand. They change the subject. By the time we find our point, the moment has passed.
But in our heads, conversations are perfect. We control everything. The timing. The words. The other person’s reactions. They say exactly what we need them to say. They respond exactly how we want them to respond. It’s like playing chess against yourself—you always win.
I drive to work every morning. Thirty minutes. In those thirty minutes, I have conversations with at least five people. My mother. My friend who owes me money. My colleague who takes credit for my ideas. A stranger who was rude to me at the grocery store last week.
I explain things to them. I make them understand. I get apologies I will never receive in real life. I achieve closures that don’t exist outside my car.
By the time I park, I am emotionally exhausted. I have fought battles. Won victories. Felt feelings. All before 9 AM. All inside my own head.
The strangest part is how real it feels. My heart beats faster during these imaginary confrontations. My hands grip the steering wheel tighter. Sometimes my eyes water during imaginary reconciliations. The body doesn’t know the difference between real and rehearsed. It reacts to both.
I have delivered my father’s eulogy many times. He is still alive. Healthy. Watching cricket right now, probably. But in my head, I have already buried him. Stood at his grave. Said beautiful words that made everyone cry. Proved how much I loved him.
Why do I do this? It disturbs me when I think about it. But I can’t stop.
I have conversations with my younger self. I try to warn him. Don’t trust that friend. Don’t take that job. Don’t say yes to that marriage. He never listens, of course. He’s already made those choices. But I keep trying to save him from mistakes that already happened.
I have conversations with my future self too. I explain my current decisions. I justify why I’m not exercising. Why I’m not saving money. Why I’m still in this job I hate. My future self is disappointed. But in these conversations, he eventually understands. He forgives me. He says it all worked out in the end.
A parliament of selves, living in my head. Past me, present me, future me. All arguing. All trying to convince each other of something.
Late at night is the worst. The house is quiet. Sleep won’t come. And my mind stages its biggest productions. Conversations I’ve been avoiding for years. Apologies I need to make. Truths I need to tell. In the darkness, I finally say them all.
To the friend I betrayed in college. To the girl I should have married. To the parent I never fully appreciated. In my midnight theater, I am brave. I am honest. I am everything I’m not during the day.
By morning, the courage is gone. The conversations retreat back into imagination. I see the friend at a wedding and say nothing important. I hear about the girl from a mutual friend and change the subject. I call my parent and talk about weather.
The gap between what I can say in my head and what I can say out loud grows wider every year.
Sometimes I wonder if everyone is doing this. If we’re all walking around having brilliant conversations that no one else hears. If the world is full of unspoken words, unexpressed feelings, undelivered speeches.
We are all better in our heads. More articulate. More honest. More brave. The versions of us that exist in our imaginary conversations are the versions we wish we could be all the time.
Maybe that’s why we keep rehearsing. Not because we’ll ever say these things. But because saying them in our heads is the closest we’ll get to being the people we want to be.
Or maybe we rehearse because we want to be understood. Really understood. In real conversations, we’re always being interrupted, misunderstood, only half-heard. But in our imaginary ones, the other person gets it. Completely. Finally. They see us exactly as we want to be seen.
That never happens in real life. People see their own versions of us. Distorted by their needs, their fears, their histories. We can never control how we appear in someone else’s mind.
But in our own conversations? We control everything. We are finally, perfectly, completely understood.
Even if no one is there to understand us.
The shower ends. The commute ends. The night passes. And we go back to our real conversations. Messy. Imperfect. Full of things we meant to say but didn’t.
But tomorrow, in the shower again, we’ll be brilliant. In the car again, we’ll be brave. In the darkness again, we’ll be honest.
The theater never closes. The rehearsals never stop.
And somewhere between what we imagine and what we live, we keep trying to become the person who exists only in our heads.
Maybe one day, the two will match.
Probably not.
But we keep rehearsing anyway. Just in case.