Enjoy the Silence

Vows are spoken to be broken.
Feelings are intense. Words are trivial.
Pleasures remain. So does the pain.

The move to the new house is near completion.  Most of my life’s belongings are unpacked and placed at their arbitrarily decided new location, where they will remain until I decide to move again and pack them away for an indefinite amount of time.  I am really comfortable in my new room.  It feels like home to me, more so than I have felt since I moved away from Rialto 7 years ago.

The one thing that disturbs me most about my new residence is the fact that it is so quiet.  In the apartment I recently abandoned, I had neighbors above me whose favorite hobby was to keep my roommates and myself as awake and annoyed as possible.  They honed this skill to perfection.  The neighbors across from us had a cockatiel that would chirp incessantly. I was definitely looking forward to moving and enjoying a new found silence.

Silence can sometimes be intensely emotional and turbulent.  In a conversation between two people, a lot can be said by saying nothing at all.  This kind of silence I can enjoy.   The look in someones eyes, or the body language of an individual speaks louder than any word in any language.  Words are akin to the slight of hand and misdirection a magician uses to distract you from reality.  Words are meaningless and forgettable.  What would we say if we could only speak truths about how we really feel?

In our busy, everyday activities we become so used to the background noise of life.  We tune most of it out. We hardly pay attention to it.  But we need it.  When left with only inner dialogue I am frightened by the realities of my life.  Words are seductively deceptive; thought is abstract, honest and scary. It wasn’t always this way for me.  I used to be extremely satisfied while trapped in my own head, alone.  Something changed, and I need to figure out what.