It's hard to explain anxiety to those who don't experience it.

Host: The city’s hum had grown soft — that strange, electric quiet that only comes after midnight. The streets outside the 24-hour diner were slick with rain, reflecting the glow of traffic lights — green, yellow, red, like a slow pulse. Inside, the place was nearly empty.

A jukebox played faintly in the corner, some old soul song that felt too tender for the hour. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, cold but comforting in their constancy.

Jack sat in a booth by the window, his coffee untouched, his fingers tapping restlessly against the tabletop. Jeeny slid in across from him, still wearing her coat, her eyes soft but sharp — the kind of gaze that reads the silence before the words arrive.

Host: It was one of those nights when thoughts wouldn’t stay quiet, when the body was tired but the mind was wide awake — pacing behind the ribs like something trapped.

Jeeny: “You called at 1 a.m. — that’s usually a code red.”

Jack: “It’s not a crisis.”

Jeeny: “Then what is it?”

Jack: “It’s… something I can’t explain.”

Jeeny: “Try me.”

Jack: [pauses] “Steve Young said it once — ‘It’s hard to explain anxiety to those who don’t experience it.’ And I think that’s the problem. It’s not even language. It’s isolation disguised as feeling.”

Jeeny: “Anxiety isn’t a feeling, Jack. It’s a storm with no rain. You can hear it, feel it, taste it — but no one else sees the clouds.”

Jack: “Exactly. Everyone keeps saying, ‘Calm down,’ as if calm is a button you press.”

Jeeny: “Calm isn’t a button. It’s a bridge — and sometimes it’s still under construction.”

Host: The sound of a coffee cup clinking against porcelain filled the pause between them — small noises amplified by stillness.

Jack: “You ever try to describe it? The panic?”

Jeeny: “Yeah. It’s like drowning in air. Everything’s normal, but you can’t breathe.”

Jack: “And everyone around you is still talking about the weather.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because they don’t see the rip current. To them, you’re just standing there, fine.”

Jack: “You know, when Young said that, I think he meant more than just confusion. He meant invisibility. Anxiety’s invisible — and that’s the cruel part. No one fights what they can’t see.”

Jeeny: “Or believe. Because if you can’t show it, people think it’s not real.”

Jack: “You ever had someone tell you to ‘just relax’?”

Jeeny: [smirks] “All the time. That’s like telling someone in a burning building to enjoy the warmth.”

Host: Her words hung there, quiet but piercing — truth clothed in irony. The rain tapped gently on the glass beside them, a rhythm too steady for either of their hearts.

Jack: “You know what it really feels like? Like your body doesn’t trust you anymore. Like your heartbeat is whispering secrets you don’t want to hear.”

Jeeny: “Or like you’re rehearsing disaster in a room full of people who don’t hear the music.”

Jack: “Yeah. That’s the part that makes me feel crazy — it’s all invisible but overwhelming.”

Jeeny: “That’s because anxiety isn’t madness. It’s awareness turned inward — too much seeing, too much hearing, too much being.”

Jack: “You make it sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “Because it is. Even suffering has rhythm. It’s just not one anyone wants to dance to.”

Host: The fluorescent lights flickered once, a subtle tremor across the diner’s stillness — as if even electricity was listening.

Jack: “You think it’s possible to explain it? Really explain it?”

Jeeny: “Not with words. Only with empathy.”

Jack: “Empathy’s rare.”

Jeeny: “So is honesty.”

Jack: “You think honesty helps?”

Jeeny: “It does. Anxiety feeds on silence. It starves when you name it.”

Jack: “Name it? Like a monster?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because once it has a name, it’s not just chaos. It’s something you can face, talk to, outlast.”

Jack: “But explaining it still feels impossible.”

Jeeny: “That’s because explaining requires logic — and anxiety doesn’t speak logic. It speaks fear.”

Host: Her voice softened, a quiet steadiness cutting through the tension, like light finding its way through fog.

Jack: “You know, I envy people who’ve never felt it. The ease they have. The way they just move through the world without needing permission from their own mind.”

Jeeny: “Yeah. But maybe their peace is borrowed, not earned.”

Jack: “What do you mean?”

Jeeny: “I mean those who fight storms inside themselves — they understand calm more deeply than anyone who’s never been caught in one.”

Jack: “So you’re saying anxiety makes you grateful for peace.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying it teaches you how precious peace really is.”

Jack: “You sound like someone who’s survived it.”

Jeeny: “I have. More than once. You don’t cure anxiety. You coexist with it — like living beside a river that floods sometimes, but also feeds your life.”

Host: He looked at her, his eyes shadowed but listening — not just hearing her, but feeling the truth between her words.

Jack: “I think that’s what people don’t get. It’s not fear of something. It’s fear itself. Fear that doesn’t need a reason.”

Jeeny: “Because anxiety doesn’t want answers. It just wants control.”

Jack: “And the cruel part? The more you fight it, the stronger it gets.”

Jeeny: “Right. That’s why the trick isn’t to win. It’s to breathe in the middle of it — to let it exist without letting it own you.”

Jack: “Easier said than done.”

Jeeny: “Everything healing is.”

Host: Outside, a car passed through a puddle, scattering droplets against the window. The sound was brief but grounding — proof that the world was still moving, indifferent but alive.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, when Young said it’s hard to explain anxiety, he wasn’t admitting defeat. He was describing compassion — the gap between the sufferer and the spectator.”

Jack: “The gap that can only be crossed by love.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because love listens, even when it can’t understand.”

Jack: “And that’s enough?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes you don’t need someone to fix it. Just someone who refuses to walk away.”

Jack: “That’s rare.”

Jeeny: “So is stillness.”

Host: The music from the jukebox faded, leaving the sound of the rain and the quiet between breaths.

Jack: “You know, I used to hate my anxiety. I thought it made me weak.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think it just makes me human.”

Jeeny: “That’s the revelation. Anxiety isn’t the enemy of strength — it’s the proof that you feel deeply, that you care.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s what makes it so hard to explain — it’s not just pain, it’s sensitivity in a world that rewards numbness.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The anxious don’t lack courage; they just live closer to awareness.”

Host: The clock above the counter ticked, slow and steady, reminding them both that the night was almost over — and with it, perhaps, the weight of unspoken storms.

Jack: “You think peace ever lasts?”

Jeeny: “No. But it returns. Like morning.”

Jack: “So you just keep waiting for it?”

Jeeny: “No. You keep creating it — one breath, one truth, one moment at a time.”

Jack: “That sounds like faith.”

Jeeny: “It is. The quiet kind.”

Host: The first hint of sunrise appeared through the clouds, tinting the puddles outside with gold.

Because as Steve Young said,
“It’s hard to explain anxiety to those who don’t experience it.”

And yet, in that small diner, under flickering lights and quiet rain,
Jack and Jeeny didn’t need to explain — they only needed to understand.

Host: For some truths are not meant to be solved or silenced,
but simply shared —
and in that shared silence,
the storm within finally began to rest.