Silence Screams

I love quotes. They simplify and give eloquence to the tangle of my thoughts. A meaningful quote can make you feel seen and heard when you are almost certain you no longer exist. Here are some quotes that speak volumes on silence. 

Silence isn't empty, it's full of answers. - Buddha

Silence is an answer to a wise man. -Euripides

The most profound statements are often said in silence. -Lynn Johnston 

And unattributed because it's such an obvious and cruel truth, "Silence is a response. A very LOUD response."

So when I broke the news, after agonizing over the facts and the feelings, that the three of us wouldn't come to stay at the home that no longer felt like ours this summer, I didn't expect the response to be so....SILENT.

Eight hours after I sent the words, I received the only response. "I have read your message and will reply when I have my thoughts together." Three days after that, the silence is deafening. The fact is, this silent response leaves no room for misunderstanding. It is a complete answer. Profound in its nothingness and lack of effort. And somehow I am still surprised.

There have been other silences over the years. I wonder if you heard them. I was silent when I stopped asking you to join, come along, be part of "us". Because the answer, aloud or silently delivered, was always no. After a while, I went silent when you chased the dreams of others, followed new tribes and joined new communities, establishing a whole new public you to the exclusion of us. I spoke up sometimes but it always ended in "why are you doing this," "that's not fair," and "you are wrong," all of which invoked my silence. 

It was so quiet and lonely, but I'm finding my voice again. My children will NEVER wonder how I feel about them. The whole world can know how I cherish each of them, even the one I only get to claim by good luck and choice, over and over and over because they are worth it. 

And in the spirit of empowering quotes, I have one more...

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow STRONG. - Winston Churchill

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finding my voice again

  It had been five years since I left, fifteen months since the divorce, a week since he'd stayed with the kids and me, and mere hours since I last cried about it all again. Motherfucker. I was in desperate need of a breakup movie that didn’t end tied in a neat little bow in the form of a new relationship with a great guy who will be her kids’ fabulous (probably rich) new stepdad. Because that wasn’t going to be my story.  I needed a redemption message where the protagonist is normal, not gorgeous. Funny, but dark. She was probably interesting before she had kids, but, well…kids. Strong. Superhuman really, but tired as fuck from doing it all alone. And I mean really alone, not dad is around on the weekends, shows up for games and band concerts or every other weekend. Or dad takes the kids in the summer alone. I mean, dad didn’t come home to support and missed one of two family therapy sessions (phone calls of course) when our fifteen-year-old spent a week in a mental hosp...
Read more

Birkenstocks and the rest of my life

I know it's hard to understand. Shit, I don't completely understand it. Why am I so upset? I left five years ago. I left because my marriage had effectively ended years before when the kids and I lived one life and he lived another. Side by side and yet totally separate. Mine consumed by work and childcare and all that goes with being an adult with kids, play dates, practices, appointments, cooking, cleaning, all of the things. His became consumed by a singular hobby that took him out of the house for hours and hours at a time. Alone and away from us.  It was a slow unraveling of a life that I thought we were in together. My mom recently reminded me that I asked for a divorce in March of 2020. He wouldn't entertain the idea or consider moving out. I had learned long before that I would never convince him of anything he didn't want to do and so I gave that up for now and looked for another way to live life. A mere four months later, in a last ditch attempt to save "...
Read more