Some Words...

For so much of my life I've dreaded silence. I remember trying to fill up the moments in my life with noise so that the silence never trapped me in a world with no escape. Noise came in many forms, men who were never good enough to keep my company, drugs or alcohol that filled my head with so much garbage there was no chance of a quiet moment, and many many conversations with myself just because the sound of a voice - even if it was my own, was better than no sound at all.

This morning I came to work early, 7:00 a.m. to be exact, and as I sat down to turn on my computer I realized that something was different; I couldn't hear anything. It wasn't that I was deaf or that I wasn't listening, it was that I was surrounded by silence. For a moment I wasn't sure how I felt about that silence. To be honest, silence is something I rarely have a chance to experience so when it was there, staring me in the face, I sort of froze. I let it wrap around me and sink into my bones and you know what? It felt wonderful. I could hear my heart beat and even though I know I'm alive...I have forgotten to feel that thump in my chest to verify its existence.

It's amazing how many things you can hear when the world is silent. Maybe all this time that I've been filling up my moments with noise I should have been putting my ear plugs in.