Silence

Oh, where to begin...

I don't know where to begin. I don't even know what the subject is tonight. I suppose I decided to write tonight to help me collect my thoughts. My mind has become very undisciplined. My thoughts just wander off on their own in no particular order, becoming tangled and confused. This is my attempt to harness them and pull them back in. Once I do, maybe I can set them in order.

How often does the average American sit and think? I mean just think. Simply being alone with their thoughts. When I was a teenager I loved to walk the woods by myself. I would read. I would write. I would think. I would sit by the creek for hours and watch the water swirling, rushing, drifting. Then for a time, when I was in college, I hated to be by myself. I was terrified of being alone with my thoughts. I was afraid of the silence. I can still feel the irrational panic rising in my chest, threatening to choke me, when there was no one else around and all was quiet. I can feel the near-hysteria that overcame me.

Now I have lived a few more years and experienced a bit more of life. There have been heights of soaring bliss and depths of black grief and drowning sorrow. I am a changed person. I suppose there are days when I still fear solitude. But being mother to a busy, chatterbox of a toddler has made me realize just how wild and disorderly my thoughts have become and how little time I devote to careful, quiet thinking. How often do I search my heart and mind? How often do I let myself be enveloped by the quiet? I usually find a way to entertain myself when my little one is sleeping. Am I still uncomfortable with my thoughts, with the silence?