I am always talking. Words are always coming out of my mouth. I would say that about 5% of the time I am actually saying the things I want to be saying. The other 95% of the time I am either saying the things that need to be said or saying things that will fill the air.
I say things at work to fill the air. To bring laughter. Shock and laughter. It feels good to hear this laughter when everything else about my job is really just NOT funny.
I say things to friends to fill the air. To make things easier. To bridge the gap. The gap that is there when you have three kids and they have no kids. The gap that is still there even when they have kids but your lives are so obviously different. Your minds. The way you function. The way you parent. Even the way you breathe air seems different.
I say things to my husband that need to be said. About our schedules. About what’s for dinner. About the broken dryer and the negative bank account.
I say things to my kids that need to be said. Too many things to list. To even think about. If you are here as a mother, you know what I mean and I don’t have to explain. And if you are here as woman with no kids, think of the whole world as your children and you will understand what I mean. And if you are here at Momalom as a man, read closely. Because all of these words that we speak? We women? They exhaust us. We do not wish to talk so much.
Do you hear me?
I DO NOT WISH TO TALK SO MUCH
I want peace. Quiet. And silence.
I do not want the trip to the grocery store. Where we pile in to the car and I’m talking. We spill out of the car and I’m talking. Grab the cart. Chatter chatter. Take a step. Chatter chatter. Pick up a melon. Words. Pick up a pepper. Words. Order some cheese. Words. Sauce. Words. Chicken. Words. BEER. Words. HELP!
Too
Many
Words
My mouth is exhausted. In every way. My words are exhausted. They are tired of listening to themselves. It is like I have ruined the English language. I think it’s why I curse so much these days. I am trying to find another way to express myself and all that comes out is fuck fuck fuck. Because what’s a better way to express frustration?
And maybe all of this is why I haven’t been minding so much the silent status of my marriage. If you follow me on Twitter you may have picked up that my husband and I haven’t talked much in the past few days. I’ve happily slept on the couch, even though so many people have advised it’s supposed to be the other way around. But why? I wonder. Having a conversation about who sleeps on the couch would defeat the whole point of the not-talking. I don’t want to communicate with him right now. I do enough communicating in a day. I’d rather save those words for something meaningful. If he wants to communicate with me, I will not say no. I will open my eyes and my ears and wait for the sounds that he has to make. I will not jump the gun and spew my soul. I am tired of this. I do it so easily. And it takes so much out of me. And right now? Right now there are so many places to be, and so much energy to expend, that I need to hold on to what I can.
Soccer practice. Ice cream social. Doctor’s appointment. Dinner club. Book club. Birthday parties. Games. Meetings. Work.
And that’s just an abbreviated list of places outside the home, and outside of my own body. The real list includes the sink and the washing machine and my soul.
Soul is a thing I don’t mention much because every time I read it or say it I feel corny. But it’s there. It’s not just a piece of me, it IS me. Me, my soul. I need to be in this place that is me. I need to walk around in there and be comfortable. And silence helps. Quiet helps. I don’t get much of it, so what I do get, I cherish.
When I think of a place that I want to be, I always go back to this:
A cabin in the woods. The wooded, WOODED woods. A log cabin with a wraparound porch. A tin roof and rain. The sound of calm.
Inside there is a soft bed. A fireplace. A small stove. And tea. A crackling fire and tea. Me in a rocking chair with a book. Or maybe none. Maybe just me. Maybe a pen. Maybe not.
Just me.
No kids asking questions. No husband needing updates. No boss needing numbers.
No anxiety. No expectations. No laundry.
Just me.
.
.
.
(and shh, I’m purposely trying to forget about all the talking that goes on when my mouth is closed. You know, INNER DIALOGUE. In my perfect place, this doesn’t exist. So let’s just not bring it up! K, thx)
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have i told you today how much i love you? yes, yes i did. no, i’m not some freaky stalker. (or worse, a spambot.)
my jaw hurts at the end of the day. from talking. from saying the same things over and over and over. my jaw hurts from not talking lest i start yelling. from clenching. from chewing gum so i don’t start smoking again. because some moments of some days, i am out of fucking patience and i want nothing more than to go outside, away from my kids, and suck down two or three cigarettes – all at one time, ideally. it’s not so much the smoking, it’s the escape, i guess.
since you brought up things that sound corny but are actually really important, i will give this to you: meditation. not some “don’t think of anything” bullshit that most people associate with meditation. some focused, breathing, body-aware, serious business meditation. it’s definitely worth looking into.
just sayin’.
word.
I absolutely love this post. And there is a conflict here brewing because you might be tired of talking, but I am not tired of hearing you talk. To the contrary, your words, for me, are fresh air. Not the fungible type we all breathe to survive. But a unique breed, stuffed with honesty and humor and exasperation. Maybe knowing this – that your words, your exhausted words – are not just words, but are bits of fresh air in a world that is so often, too often, polluted with BS, and artifice, and fluff will cast a warmer, friendlier glow on the tortured exhaustion you convey?
So, perhaps selfishly, I ask you to keep the words coming. I ask that you keep talking. But I also encourage you to run away from time to time to that proverbial existential cabin and warm your soul. Because, yes, you deserve it. We all do.
agreed. good luck with your husband. like i said on twitter, i hope HE starts talking to you this weekend.
Yes yes and yes. But, I feel it is important to mention that even though I feel exactly the same way about TALKING all the TIME, you and I always seem to have plenty of words for each other. So, I agree with Aidan, keep the words coming here in blogville, my sister. We’d be lonely without your voice.
Yes! Oh I am so glad you wrote this. I know the conflict well. I know the desire to scream at the top of my lungs, “STOP TALKING!” – to myself as well as everyone around me.
The desire to be ALONE. I know it well. I don’t have an answer, I wish I did. I’ve had swine flu this week and I’ve been in bed and alone and it’s kind of dreamy. The nice thing is a respite like that makes you miss your life and miss your words … does that make sense? I don’t wish swine flu on you but maybe just a short break to remember all the joy that there is in all of the talking.
Lindsey
http://www.adesignsovast.com
I do know how you feel. So much idle talk and nothing comes of it.
I know how you feel, and I feel for you. Keep sorting through it and posting it here. We are listening and your words here aren’t idle.
Um…did you get inside my head and write this? Cuz I’m a little freaked out, right down to sleeping on the couch (me, not him) and the negative back account and the horrible grocery store chatter I just came from and nearly killed me.
Words suck. And then they save us , too, so…be quiet for a while and then bring on the words, baby!
I loved this post. I so often scream inside my head, “STOP THE NOISE!”. Noise inside and outside my head. Noise that makes me want to jump out of myself, outside of my skin, outside of my soul. I hear the noise as well as create the noise and I can’t escape it. My husband walks into the house at night and creates more noise and wants to actually talk to me and me to talk back when all I’ve done all day is talk and listen. He immediately turns on the TV when I want quiet. He honks the horn when he drives into the driveway making the dog bark and the kids scream and it makes me want to scream more. Sometimes I feel like I’m going completely crazy and I just want to run. away.
Yoga gives me my peace on the infrequent occasion that i am able to do it. You are definitely not alone in these thoughts. And you wrote them so perfectly…
It’s a bizarre thing, the humans capacity for volume. (Sorry, I had to go turn of the TV in the background, too many words floating in so that I could not find my own words to say.) Volumes of thought, volumes of expression, volumes of compassion and volumes of possession. Volumes of resentment, volumes of silence, volumes of fillers and additives. It’s all just so MUCH.
Just yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and if I recall correctly, the 125,000 days previous as well, I said to myself, I said to my husband, I said to my children, I said to the universe, “I just want PEACE”.
It’s the one thing, it would seem, is universally scarce.
If I can find so much else of everything, everything, everything, including so very much of myself, why is it so hard to find that amazing wonderment, that incredible state of grace, state of peace, state of still, stop? I think it’s not anyone else’s responsibility but my own to find it.
I hope I will find it.
Maybe I just will.
Damn. It’s posts like these that totally blow me away. Speechless. (no pun intended)