Noise.
Wherever I go, there is always noise.
Down the street, construction; outside my door, children screaming and hitting and laughing, and parents who bustle around the kitchen with nothing better to do than clunk dishes back and forth. My father plays his guitar feebly, never an entire song, but a string of chords ranging from the Beetles to Bob Dylan. Street sounds and cars and crowds in the city. Voices in my head, my heart, that distract and chant and roar, making it impossible to focus on a single thing or person. I am never present; I am never in silence. There is always a noise.
It's enough to drive a person crazy.
See, I try to stifle the sounds, drown 'em out, but it's really difficult. The noises inside of me are the worst. I'll be lying in bed and trying my damnedest to be silent, just for a little while, enjoy my own company. But then I hear sounds like,
"You're alone. Aren't you miserable being alone? You should be, because you always are. Alone,"
or,
"Why are you lying down? You ought to be doing some exercise. You're going to put all that weight you lost back; see? You already have. Look at your legs,"
or,
"You're going to fail. Fail at school, fail at life, fail in this relationship, fail with your friends. You're a failure. It's your own fault for thinking you were good enough."
Or things along those lines.
And, the worst part is, I'll add my own voice to the noise, agree with them, and spiral further down into this veil of shame and tears and anger that I'm allowing myself to feed into. Some nights, I stare at myself in the mirror, pick out flaws, and get so angry, I start to shake.
It's bullshit, and I know this. Most of the noise, even that of my environment, is made up or amplified by the crazy noises in my head.
It's tough to shut up a voice that you've thought for so long to be your own. I mean, I know it's not. My former therapist never gave me any tools to work on it, unfortunately, or any hints as to where it's coming from, so I feel a bit like I'm in the rain without an umbrella. But then, maybe this is a problem I need to fix all by myself. I mean, I've been able to shut it up before, silence the crazy and be present in the moment and just let myself be. There's this void right now that is sucking me down, that I keep treating like a gaping wound of sorts, and I don't know what to do with it. I recently read that may well be a window or a creative pause that is probably well-needed; who knows, maybe I DO need a lot of time by myself before school, to think about things. To get involved with another person and learn how to let myself enjoy it without letting it become my life. To work on my fears and build myself up. To prepare. Plot. Create.
Hell, if you look at something that way, it could never look bad. It's barely a void anymore; it's a blank, mental canvas.
One thing is certain:
I have GOT to stop agreeing with it. The noise, that is.
That's part of why I'm writing right now. Moments before I sat down to type, I was in the middle of a miniature panic attack, deeply rooted in this "void" concept. I started hearing the noise in my head, which made the noises around me seemingly raise their decibel level 3-fold. But, unlike previous occasions, when I started digging this so-called grave for myself, I got up, took a breath, and thought, "What can I do with this energy?" Thus resulting in me sitting down to write, one of several, reliable vents that I've used in the past.
And it worked, it seems. I write this, and I think about what I'm really lucky to have, at this moment, because I can see clearly and more easily let go when I spend that energy dwelling positive things. And, lo and behold, I have a LOT to be grateful for. A lot. Enough to make me smile like I haven't all day.
Living, laughing, loving; yeah, they're antique and vague, if not corny as hell, but they're all things that add up to something wonderful, like a tune in my brain that's stuck there and hard to ignore: I have a life. A good one, if not sometimes a bit of a power-struggle between two parts of me. But it's a life, and it's mine to explore and fix and learn how to turn the noises into song. I can handle it, even if I don't think so sometimes.
It's quiet now.
There's still guitar, there're still clankey dishes, there's still the clash of construction on concrete.
But in my head, there's quiet, and I'm pleased to meet it.
I like the silence.
EDIT: Also, I'm looking forward to new things approaching, like the Autumn, for example. REALLY, really do I want it to be the Fall.
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