I’m Still Here.

I’m one of those people who crave silence.

It’s funny but after twenty-some-odd years of being a single parent, being the person who two people depended on, the one they would even follow into the bathroom to sit on the toilet and talk to me as I showered, I crave silence.

The girls used to make fun of me when they got into my car and…nothing. I didn’t have the radio on. I didn’t have a podcast playing. All I did when I drove is listen to the sweet, sweet silence.

My home is the same. Sometimes at work, I listen to books. Sometimes I just listen to nothing. My home is quiet. Unless the cat is meowing. He wants food. He always wants food. I have to explain to him that food is in his bowl but he doesn’t want that food. He wants his other food.

Life be like that sometimes.

But being content in myself was learning how to deal with silence. I’m of the opinion that people who need constant noise are the ones who haven’t learned how to appreciate the sound of their own thoughts. Or no thoughts at all. Being content in your own company means learning how to be content when you have nothing to say even to yourself.

I know it must sound depressing to some. But it’s interesting to me how sitting in my house in the silence reading a book or doing work is strange but hiking by myself or kayaking by myself is something to be jealous of. Why is one acceptable and one unacceptable?

Silence is beautiful if you’re aware of it’s potential.

Silence is peaceful when it’s done the right way.

God enjoys the silence. He speaks in the silence. The burning bush was on a mountain in the silence. I think of the Catholic churches I love. The Adorations I’ve been to. Sitting in the silence, looking at God, thanking him, talking to him, explaining to him how my days have been going and what I think about life. He’s there. Sitting in the silence with me, like an adoring Father, saying, “Yeah, kiddo. I think so, too.”

Or, even better, I hear him say, “Stop being so hard on yourself. You’re human. I made you the way I made you because the world needed one of you. I love you so much and you have so much to offer this world. Now what are you going to do about it?”

I think of all the people who are desperately lonely. The ones who sit in silence and think about all the wrong things they’ve done. I do that sometimes. I sit in the silence and swirl down a dark path of self-loathing and hatred. And I let the silence wash over me like a blanket of despair.

I remember talking to a coworker one day and saying, “Isn’t it crazy that some people make mistakes and just move on? They don’t just sit there and think about them over and over and obsess about them for days?”

He looked at me incredously and said, “A couple hours? Maybe. But days?”

Yeah. Days. I will sit in my house and ruminate over one mistake for days. Don’t even get me started on anything bigger than a simple mistake. That takes years. Decades.

But when God is in the silence, I hear him crystal clear, “You need to forgive youself.”

I had parents who expected perfection. In a way that was unhealthy. One mistake meant life was over. One misstep meant that we could lose everything. Get a B- in chemistry? You’re never going to make it to college, live making minimum wage for the rest of your life, and never amount to anything.

Miss a day of work? They’re going to fire you and you’ll be living in a box by the side of the road in a month. Maybe two if you have any savings.

Snip at someone? You just made them so depressed they’re thinking of taking their own life.

Everything was the worst thing in the world and it trained my brain to always think of the worst case scenario. Everything. Any slight mishap was everything was going to go down the drain and be the worst thing ever. To the point where even if I didn’t do something wrong, the potential of doing something wrong terrified me into inaction.

I’ve been in therapy for a long time. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one that worked well for me. It was always, “Worst case scenario, what will happen and what will you do about it?”

What I’ve found is the worst case scenario rarely ever happens. And when it does, I’ll probably survive it like I’ve survived everything else I’ve had to go through in this life. Abuse. Betrayal. Pain. Fights. Homelessness. Poverty. Job loss. The senseless loss of life. Grief. Working two jobs six days a week to take care of my kids. Going to undergrad and graduate school full time while working full time and taking care of my kids. A family who thought I would never amount to anything. A family who thought my children would be failures because I was a single mom doing the best I could with what I had. All of it. The pressure of constantly having real and imagined voice in the back of my head telling me everything, every single thing, I did was wrong and I was a failure.

I survived all of it and more.

And I’m still here.

So are you.

I’m not a failure. I’m someone who took the hard road sometimes and still got up every day and pushed through. That when depression weighed me down and wrapped me up so hard I couldn’t breathe, I still got out of bed every day and struggled my way through life. That any glimmer of hope made me put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

And in the silence, when I sat with God, I prayed for joy. For peace. For happiness.

Now that I have it, I’m never letting it go. Because in my forty-some-odd years of life I have realized I can overcome things that would bring most people to their knees.

And so can you.

BOOKS i READ THIS WEEK (NOT MUCH)

• Broken Country by Clare Leslie: A woman has a passionate love affair with a guy who has some sort of English title. It didn’t work out through some misunderstanding. She marries a man who is a farmer and has a son. The son tragically dies. The guy with the title comes back to town with his own son. The wife has an affair with him. The farmer’s brother is murdered. The farmer goes to prison. She has another child. He comes home. The end. It was long. And kind of boring at times. The book seemed to go on and on and it was hard to finish. It took me like three days to come to the ending. Which was…meh. I get it. There was supposed to be a twist. But the characters were so unlikable I didn’t really find myself rooting for anyone really. And it was really depressing. I didn’t really like it. **

• Remain by Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan: A man is suffering from depression and goes to a psychatric ward. He gets out and goes to the Cape to help his rich friend build a house. He lives in an Air BNB type thing and sees a woman. The woman is a ghost who was murdered. He falls in love with her and takes it upon himself to find out who killed her. There’s a list of suspects a mile long. It’s good if you like paranormal books. Maybe a bit predictable. I guess I expected more of two people who are so famous in their own genres. It didn’t have the bite I wanted. Maybe I was a bit depressed after coming off Broken Country but I wasn’t thrilled by this one, either. It was cute in parts. Oscar was a great character. But it seemed too formulaic for my taste. Rich people. Check. Old house. Tortured charater. Check. Sexy ghost. Check. A couple teasers. Check. Ending that ties everything together. Check. It wasn’t a waste of time but I’m not going to reach out for it again. ***

Bible verse of the week

“When I came to you, brothers and sisters, proclaiming the myster of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.

What I bought this week that I loved

A desk chair! For the longest time I always had a dining room chair for my desk. I don’t know if I just didn’t think I deserved a desk chair or that there were other things I had to buy and it was always on the backburner. But this week, I bought one! It’s amazing. And I love it.

Buy the thing that you need but keep putting off. If finances allow. Please. Do something nice for yourself every once in a while!