Intentional Silence

It's quiet in here.

Last night, on Facebook, I complained about the noise levels in my house.

"Boys are noisy." I wrote.  "Will they always be this loud?"

The general consensus was yes, indeed they will, and they might even get louder.

Good lord help us all.

It's funny, the more that I've spent time learning about Griffin and Aspergers, the more I've also learned about myself.  There are so many aspergers traits that I see in myself when they're all written down in a list, and while I don't think that I myself land on the spectrum, I certainly have more in common with my eldest son than I might have originally thought.

Sensitivity to noise is a biggie.  There always seems to be some sort of noise going on here.  The children are hollering and yelling, the dog is barking, some annoying cartoon character on Netflix, the list goes on.  I'm not a big music listener, preferring the sound of silence.  When I'm working in the basement I'll usually put some music on, but when the sump pump kicks in, or the water filtration system does it's big once-daily flush, the noise (music) on top of noise is just too much for me.  Now, sitting in the quiet of my living room, with one child at school, and the other burrowed in my bed (hopefully heading off to napland) it is mostly quiet.  But even the constant whir of the fan on our fireplace is annoying me and putting me on edge.

Still, if I can tune that out (which I mostly can) and be alone with myself and the silence for a few minutes, I can usually reset.

We are always busy.  Not just in this house, oh no, in EVERY house it seems.  All of us lead such busy lives, coming and going, dropping off and picking up and running errands and so on.  I've learned in the past little while, that for me, I NEED silence each day.  Sometimes it's in a few stolen moments mid-day, sometimes it's in an intentional hour long walk in the evening, but I need it, crave it even.

Silence is golden they say.  It's so good for us to turn off and tune out and be comfortable in our own skin with the sound of our own breath and our own heart beating.  If we can't be comfortable in the silence of our own selves, how can we be expected to be comfortable out there in the big bad world each day?

Seek intentional silence.  And then revel in it!

(This moment of stolen silence is brought to you by the distracting powers of Netflix on one certain preschooler,  in a room on the other side of the house.  With a pillow over his head.  Don't worry, he put it there, not me!)  ;)