I can always tell when I’ve got my house in order. Not my house house, let’s not fool ourselves, that’s almost never in order. I’m talking ’bout the old noggin. When I’m in the right head space silence isn’t a problem. Do I enjoy spending hours upon hours marinating in Quiet? Not really. Even on my best days I’ve got a limited tolerance for embracing silence. But when my head’s screwed on wrong getting stuck in silence is enough to make me jump out a window.

It’s been awhile since I’ve experienced this particular unpleasantness. Glass half full – that means I’m on a streak of awesome possum so yay. Glass half empty – nah, I dunno, but I do know being silent for a few hours on Thursday nearly drove me to the brink. No bueno.

First come the jitters. Jumping at every flicker in my peripheral vision. Twitchy fingers, restless toes, shifting in my seat like a six-year-old during the reading of the Passion on Easter Saturday. Then comes the self-talk – you can do this, Laura. It’s okay to sit here by yourself. It’s okay not to know any of these people. It’s okay that your teen with her newly minted independence and a friend posse three deep is 200% ignoring you. IT’S OKAY, DAMMIT.

Eventually there’s an acceptance. Not an ahhhhhh, the gloriousness of siiiiiilence acceptance. More an okay, then, I guess we’ll just find a way to sit with this without losing our mind sort of thing.

But sometimes that’s really all I can ask for.

Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week’s prompt is “silent/silence.ā€ Use one or both in your post. Have fun!