I used to write in a small black journal on the number 16 bus, mostly because it was the only place in Dublin where nobody expected anything from me. I’d sit upstairs, forehead against the glass, moving between Rathmines and the city centre, pretending I was busy when really I was trying not to feel invisible. I wrote about everything I couldn’t say aloud: my father’s death, my fear of becoming him, the way I’d stopped answering friends, and the strange ache of walking through Dublin surrounded by people and still feeling like the last person on earth.
One wet Thursday in November, I left the journal in a café near George’s Street. I only realised when I reached St Stephen’s Green and put my hand into my bag for a pen. The panic was instant and physical. That book had two years of me in it, and not the version I gave to people in pubs or at work. The real one. The frightened one. I ran back through the rain, past Grafton Street buskers playing to umbrellas, already imagining some stranger laughing at my worst thoughts.
Behind the counter, a woman about my age held up the journal before I even spoke. “Is this yours?” she asked. Her name was Sarah. She worked there part-time while doing a master’s in social care. I said yes too quickly, snatched it, thanked her, and turned to leave. Then she said, very gently, “I’m sorry. I read a little. I shouldn’t have.”
I remember feeling my face burn. I asked how much. She looked genuinely ashamed and said she’d opened it to find a name or number, but the first page she saw had stopped her. It was an entry from the night before. I had written, “I don’t think anyone would notice if I disappeared slowly.” I had not meant anything dramatic by it. Or maybe I had. I still don’t know. But seeing the sentence reflected in her eyes made it sound less like writing and more like a warning.
I wanted to be angry. It would have been easier. Instead, I stood there dripping rain onto the floor while this stranger told me she knew that sentence. Not the exact words, but the room it came from. Her mother had died the year before, and she had spent months perfecting the art of seeming fine. She said grief made liars out of decent people. Then she offered me a coffee, not as a customer, but as someone who had accidentally walked into my life holding the truth.
We sat by the window for twenty minutes. I barely spoke at first. She didn’t push. Outside, people hurried past with collars up and paper bags tucked under coats. Inside, the place smelled of espresso and wet wool. She told me that after her mother died, she used to walk along the Grand Canal at night because the dark water made her feel less alone. I told her I hadn’t said my father’s name out loud in months. When I finally did, it broke something open in me. Not in a beautiful way. In an ugly, necessary way.
Before I left, Sarah wrote her number on a napkin and said, “You don’t have to use it. But if you ever feel like disappearing slowly, tell someone first.” I kept the napkin in the journal. For three days, I did nothing. I was embarrassed. I told myself she had only been kind because she felt guilty for reading it. But on Sunday evening, after walking circles around Merrion Square, I texted her one word: “Still here.” She replied, “Good. Tea?”
We started meeting once a week. Sometimes at the café, sometimes in Dublin city centre</a
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
