Q is for Quiet by Conlee Ricketts #atozchallenge

is for Quiet

In the not so distant past when I was busy being a stay-at-home/work-at-home Mom, I noticed a shift as I was working at—but not really succeeding in my business endeavors.  I noticed that I would get nervous as Sunday would end and Monday would begin. 

All the noise and activity from the weekend would end as I would send my daughter off to school and close the back door.  The peace and quiet I had wished for mid-Saturday had finally arrived and because I’m an introvert I desperately needed this time because I love to be re-energized by some good old fashioned alone time, but during this past year Monday mornings started to feel different to me.  The house was so quiet it hurt my ears.  Really.  The silence was so loud it seemed to echo a noiselessness in my head that was a little scary.  I had never been afraid of the quiet before.  I had never dreaded alone time before.

I had to make friends with this new quiet or I was certain I would go crazy.  Some people love to turn on music or the T.V. to drown out the silence, but I really do appreciate the quiet.  I love it when it’s quiet, but it had started to feel different and I found myself turning on the T.V. to avoid dealing with the constant noise of my quiet.

I think my “new quiet” was holding a mirror to me and my life.  I had to face some pretty big truths about my life.  The biggest one was probably the fact that I was hiding.  I had been hiding from admitting that I needed to make some major changes in my business and my life.  I was hiding from the truth that I wanted to be writing but I wasn’t writing.  I was hiding from the truth that I was angry about several things that had recently occurred and instead of admitting I was just plain pissed off I wanted to “behave” and put a forgiving face on it for others.  I was hiding from the truth that I needed help but was afraid to reach out to friends for fear of refusal.

This new quiet was so damn loud that there were moments when I would walk through the house and scream to drown it out as I moved from task to task.  I had to start talking to it, asking it what the hell it wanted from me.  There were moments of self-loathing that I had to get through in order to find out all the things in my life I had been hiding from, and thanks to this quiet I realized that  there wasn't anything I couldn't handle, nothing was really going to hurt me, and most of all I wasn’t going to be able to hide anymore.  The quiet wasn't going to shut up until I learned all this.

I finally forced myself to face it and make it my friend.  It helped me start writing again, it kept me company while job hunting, it supported me through some self-exploration, and I am happy to say that my quiet time is once again quiet.  My entire life I have never been afraid of silence and didn’t understand other people’s need to fill the void, but now I know the fear that comes with silence. 

My only advice here is that silence is not fatal.  The fear you feel during the quiet is perhaps trying to teach you something, and if you take the leap of faith to talk to the quiet I’m sure there are lessons there for you too.  Try to take a day without the music and T.V. to see if there is anything the quiet is trying to tell you.  Trust me, you won’t have to work at it, if your quiet wants to tell you something it will be crazy LOUD!

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