"Speaking of Silence..."
Tonight, I left my church and drove home. Nothing new, nothing
particularly special about it. Same deer crossing the road into the same field, same
person's floodlight placed perfectly in my line of vision at the top of a
sharp curve, same headache...except tonight, I drove in silence.
Now, I'm an introvert. Not shy. I just prefer to gather my own energy from within myself and by being alone. Lately, I have been driving alot, and often, those drives have been in silence.
Mostly because my head and heart are so full of words and thoughts and emotions, the only control I have is over the volume or the source of the noise and static. And sometimes, I just want silence. An ease from the throbbing intensity within my heart and mind, I want the words and voices to stop. The voices of my desires and wants and dreams and wishes (whether they be sin or kosher) and then voices of everyone else.
My self monologues are tough, and sometimes, I wish my soul wasn't so black and white...because I've been confronted with alot of gray lately and I have a divide in my soul. It's nothing new, I've felt it for years now, between who I am and who I think I should be...between what is and what people believe I ought to be.
I struggle with keeping harmony; if it's within my power, then I will affect it. Often that means cutting off my opinion, if it's a battle I don't deem worthwhile to take a stand in. Lately, I've been fighting non-stop it seems, for battles I can't afford to give in to...and while these fights are not always marked by huge cannonballs blasting through my walls, they often boil down to being very much like a rope tied to both hands, being slowly winched in opposite directions.
It comes down to what makes me feel free? What makes me feel boundless and energy-ful, even when it's being sucked out of me as I breathe.
And I'm afraid to name that freedom. Because it doesn't fit what anyone else thinks my life is or was going to be like. I am not afraid to make hard choices and to abide by them, I'm not afraid to lose things if they are meant to be lost. I just wonder what I'm going to have to lose in order to keep God where my passion flows from. I have always purposed in my heart, that He was what I needed and no one else. Granted, that statement was made when I was fat and thought I'd be forever alone, and spinsterhood was my only option, but now that I have changed, physically and in maturity, I see the full implications of what that could mean, socio-emotionally.
what will I have to give up, in order to follow and be what He's called me to be? Set apart? from what? What makes me any different than half the other 20-somethings strutting around out here, not a clue where they're going, bopping from seat to seat and bed to bed, just because they can and who's to tell them any different....and what makes me different other than I haven't slept around or because I haven't done drugs? What if my heart is just as wayward and self-serving as theirs, I'm just better at disguising it behind a "good girl" facade?
I'm not going to preach or turn this into a "find God's will and you'll do fine" shpiel without telling you what those steps are. Heck, I don't know the steps and no one I've talked to does either. I don't know where I'm supposed to be going or doing, or when or how, I just know what I have a passion for and what makes me feel truly alive... I do know what will keep me healthy and what will damage my heart; I'm aware of what might potentially give me ulcers and what I'd be wise to kick in the butt...now comes the hard part and the voices crescendo into a cacophony of nay and yay-sayers, good and bad versus the me and the not-me.
Nothing ever goes perfectly, but you'd be amazed at what you begin to hear when you turn off the radio and thoughts and words...and just be. Remembering the sound of existence. The sound of silence.
Now, I'm an introvert. Not shy. I just prefer to gather my own energy from within myself and by being alone. Lately, I have been driving alot, and often, those drives have been in silence.
Mostly because my head and heart are so full of words and thoughts and emotions, the only control I have is over the volume or the source of the noise and static. And sometimes, I just want silence. An ease from the throbbing intensity within my heart and mind, I want the words and voices to stop. The voices of my desires and wants and dreams and wishes (whether they be sin or kosher) and then voices of everyone else.
My self monologues are tough, and sometimes, I wish my soul wasn't so black and white...because I've been confronted with alot of gray lately and I have a divide in my soul. It's nothing new, I've felt it for years now, between who I am and who I think I should be...between what is and what people believe I ought to be.
I struggle with keeping harmony; if it's within my power, then I will affect it. Often that means cutting off my opinion, if it's a battle I don't deem worthwhile to take a stand in. Lately, I've been fighting non-stop it seems, for battles I can't afford to give in to...and while these fights are not always marked by huge cannonballs blasting through my walls, they often boil down to being very much like a rope tied to both hands, being slowly winched in opposite directions.
It comes down to what makes me feel free? What makes me feel boundless and energy-ful, even when it's being sucked out of me as I breathe.
And I'm afraid to name that freedom. Because it doesn't fit what anyone else thinks my life is or was going to be like. I am not afraid to make hard choices and to abide by them, I'm not afraid to lose things if they are meant to be lost. I just wonder what I'm going to have to lose in order to keep God where my passion flows from. I have always purposed in my heart, that He was what I needed and no one else. Granted, that statement was made when I was fat and thought I'd be forever alone, and spinsterhood was my only option, but now that I have changed, physically and in maturity, I see the full implications of what that could mean, socio-emotionally.
what will I have to give up, in order to follow and be what He's called me to be? Set apart? from what? What makes me any different than half the other 20-somethings strutting around out here, not a clue where they're going, bopping from seat to seat and bed to bed, just because they can and who's to tell them any different....and what makes me different other than I haven't slept around or because I haven't done drugs? What if my heart is just as wayward and self-serving as theirs, I'm just better at disguising it behind a "good girl" facade?
I'm not going to preach or turn this into a "find God's will and you'll do fine" shpiel without telling you what those steps are. Heck, I don't know the steps and no one I've talked to does either. I don't know where I'm supposed to be going or doing, or when or how, I just know what I have a passion for and what makes me feel truly alive... I do know what will keep me healthy and what will damage my heart; I'm aware of what might potentially give me ulcers and what I'd be wise to kick in the butt...now comes the hard part and the voices crescendo into a cacophony of nay and yay-sayers, good and bad versus the me and the not-me.
Nothing ever goes perfectly, but you'd be amazed at what you begin to hear when you turn off the radio and thoughts and words...and just be. Remembering the sound of existence. The sound of silence.
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