Why My Notes App Knows Me Better Than Most People
Written by lindsay gould
Halloween Costumes
Things that make me happy
3 a.m. thoughts
Passwords
Quotes to read when I’m spiraling
My Roman Empire(s)
Questions I wish someone would ask me
Why do I feel so alone?
THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE
My Notes app is a direct window into my mind: a messy, half-organized, emotional landfill of how I see the world. It’s one of my most prized possessions, yet I would never in a million years show anyone what’s actually inside.
It’s all there: grocery lists next to food logs, essay ideas next to half-baked realizations typed at 3 a.m. Sometimes it’s funny — “don’t trust a man who wears blue socks.” Sometimes it’s heavy — “I miss who I was before I got so tired.” It’s a digital diary disguised as productivity.
In my Notes app, I can be completely honest. No performance, no filters, no pressure to be digestible. I can tell the truth exactly as it is, not how I think it will sound to someone else. It’s the only place I feel my emotions don’t need to be translated, softened, or explained.
Because the truth is, sometimes I just want to tell people how I feel without them trying to fix it. Without them projecting, or analyzing, or offering a multi-step plan to make it better. Sometimes I just want to say I’m sad and have that be enough.
But that’s not how most conversations work, especially when you’re young and everyone’s trying to prove they’re emotionally intelligent. We rush to respond, to relate, to solve. We say things like I know exactly how you’re feeling or you’ll laugh about this someday, not because we are truly listening, but because the silence feels unbearable.
We’re uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. It’s such a simple truth, but once you notice it, you see it everywhere: in classrooms, in relationships, in the way we rush past our feelings instead of sitting with them. We treat awkward pauses like emergencies. We confuse talking with connecting.
I’m guilty of it too. When someone I love is hurting, I want to help. I want to fill the silence with something reassuring, even if my version of comfort sounds more like interruption. Yet when I’m the one unraveling, I don’t always have the patience to receive the same energy. If I’m already feeling upset or angry, one misplaced piece of advice can set me off. My fuse gets short. I get defensive. Then I feel guilty, because I know they meant well.
So instead, I write.
I open that little yellow icon and pour everything in: frustration, fear, gratitude, longing. My phone won’t tell me to calm down. It won’t say I’m being unreasonable. It won’t try to relate. It just lets me be.
There’s something sacred about that. About having a place that asks for nothing. It’s quiet, private, and forgiving. My Notes app doesn’t need me to make sense and it doesn’t flinch when I’m being petty or dramatic or heartbreakingly sincere. It just listens.
And maybe that’s what I’m really craving. Not advice. Not a solution. Just someone, or something, that can hold space without trying to change me. I think about how often we confuse listening with waiting for our turn to talk. How often we rush to be helpful, when really the kindest thing we can do is just say, I hear you. Maybe that’s why I feel safest talking to a screen — because it can’t talk back.
I’ll scroll through my old notes and it feels like reading a timeline of growing up. The “me” from two years ago sounds like a stranger. She thought the world was ending every other week and she used words like “forever” without irony. I want to hug her and tell her that she’ll be fine, even though I’m still not sure who I am.
There are notes that make me laugh. Notes that make me cringe. Notes that read like tiny prayers. It’s all part of me. Every phase, every heartbreak, every version I’ve tried on and outgrown.
My Notes app isn’t just a collection of thoughts, it’s proof I’m paying attention. That I’m trying, in my own messy way, to make sense of being human.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if I ever lost it. If one bad iCloud sync could erase years of unfiltered thoughts and honesty. Would I feel relieved or devastated? Maybe both. Because as private as it is, the Notes app is also a mirror. It shows me the things I don’t say out loud, the truths I'm still working up the courage to admit.
Maybe one day, I'll be brave enough to share those confessions with someone other than my phone. Maybe they’ll be brave enough to just listen and sit in the silence without rushing to fill it.
Until then, I'll keep typing. It’s not therapy. It’s not a conversation. But it’s honest. And for now, that’s enough.
For being courageous even when it’s scary,
Lindsay