Q: Quiet... and how that doesn't happen

I am loud.  Talk loud.  Whisper loud.  Laugh loud.

I get my hands slapped to this day because of it.

Sure, as any typical kid, I was loud.  Normally a person learns about the "inside voice" by the time they've reached 5th grade.

I missed that day in kindergarten apparently.  As well as "don't worry about what other people think about you" day, but that's another story.

I've had family members of friends leave the room because I'm talking too loud.  I've gotten written up at jobs because I talk to loud on the phone.  My mom will move her fingers as if turning the volume down on a stereo amplifier when we speak to each other in person.

On the other side of it....

My great-grandmother is nearly deaf and she wants to hear how Adam and I are doing and asks me to speak up.  I often feel as if people try to speak over me or interrupt, so I speak louder.  I thought what you said was freaking hilarious and god damnit, I'm going to laugh about it.

Even when I'm at home by myself, I always have to have something going on in the background.  Music, tv, random movie, something.  Total silence makes me uncomfortable.  Which shocks me that Adam can sit in the house and do work with NOTHING ON.  Dead silence.  I assume something awful happened and he's all, "Nope, I'm fine.  Just reading."

What.