“Sometimes when you are quiet, it feels loud to me,” my friend messaged.
That comment from a week or two ago has stuck with me.
Even though I still haven’t responded to the message.
Even in my ongoing silence.
A silence not meant to keep others out, but to protect what is left within.
To guard the little that remains.
Keeping myself safe because it no longer feels safe anywhere.
Not here.
Or here.
Or even here…where I have always felt safe.
Any safety I feel now seems like a safe space that only I can create. Only I can provide. (Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be…I don’t know…)
But my quiet feels loud to me, too.
Yet, overdue.
And necessary.
Those words from my friend’s message immediately came to mind last night when I was startled awake by sudden silence.
The complete and utter quiet that comes with a power outage. When nothing is humming in the background. No constant murmur of air conditioning or appliances…just the eerie quiet of nothingness.
And I felt it.
My power went out and I felt it, figuratively and literally. Immediately. Viscerally.
The quiet in my bedroom felt so loud to me that I couldn’t fall back asleep. I tossed and turned, waiting to grow accustomed to yet another level of silence.
A deeper silence that allows us to listen to the whispers that we cannot normally hear above the din of everyday life.
Listening to what remains unspoken.
What has not yet been unearthed, excavated, and explored.
What has not yet been healed.
But as the darkness held me, I realized that it wasn’t my power that went out, after all. Because I still felt the cool breeze of the ceiling fan swirling errant strands of my hair, tickling my face.
No, my power didn’t go out. It was the white-noise app on my phone that stopped playing for some reason. And that felt even more right. My power was on, but I was still questioning it. When in actuality, it was just the white noise that had stopped.
Noise that had been comforting me. Lulling me. Soothing me with its dull rustle.
And when the noise stopped, the quiet was jarring.
Until it wasn’t.
Until it felt even more soothing than the soft whirring that was my lullaby every night as I fell into fitful sleep.
The silence now felt protective.
In the silence, I could feel the pain.
In the silence, I allowed myself to feel the losses.
In my quiet, I might be alone in my pain and loss, but I am also not having to try and help someone else feel better as I sit with heavy feelings that make them uncomfortable.
I am not having to reassure someone else when they don’t know the right things to say.
I am not having to tell the stories again.
I am not having to explain my wounds that don’t look or feel how I ever thought trauma would look or feel.
In the silence, I feel safer. And also, more authentic. At least for now.
Even to me, my quiet feels loud.
Her whispers have turned into shouted pleas.
Pleas that need to be cared for in a safe space.
With love.
With compassion.
And enveloped by my loud quiet.