Absolute Silence

Absolute Silence

Blogging Through the ABCs -A is for Absolute Silence

This is a concept that is totally foreign to me.  My house is never silent.  Even when the kids are all in bed asleep there is a creak from a bed as someone rolls over.  The obnoxious noise my rocking chair makes as I rock in it.  The dogs walking across the wood floor.  I’m sure you’re getting the picture by now.

It’s not that I don’t want silence.  Silence would be wonderful.  But I think I might go crazy if I had absolute silence.  For me silence is relative. Silence is the absence of the constant noise that happens in our house.  Silence is cherished.

But I also know that there will come a day when all I have is silence.  My kids will be grown up and gone and it’ll just be my husband, the animals, and me sitting around in my noisy rocking chair when the chores are done.  Chores become quite a shorter list when there isn’t a dozen people living in one house.

Somedays I think what it will be like when I can just sit for five seconds.  Somedays I wonder what will happen when the absolute silence comes.  And then it hits me.  I’ll remember. I’ll be full of memories of the years where silence was just a dream.  Where absolute silence was a concept that seemed foreign to me.  A concept I wondered if even existed.

I’m not saying I don’t have days that are hard.  I do.  I have them a lot.  Days where I just want to step outside and revel in the lack of noise. But I don’t.  Partly because I know my kids will keep getting into things or doing whatever it is their doing; or they’ll follow me.  And partly because I know that there will come a day where silence will be the reality and I’ll find myself wishing for the days of noise.

It’s human nature to want what we don’t have at that point in time.  What I’m learning is it’s okay to think about and want something but that it’s more important to make the most of the day we have and to enjoy and embrace the noise.

As I type this I have kids doing chores.  They’re never silent when they do chores.  Brooms get dropped.  Toes get stubbed.  Playing happens instead.  It’s life.  It’s noisy.  It’s the furthest thing from absolute silence that there can ever be.  But I find it comforting.  It’s the sounds of home.  It’s the noises of family.  It’s childhood.  It’s kids playing and learning and growing.  It’s us as their parents doing the same.

And so, my A in Blogging through the ABCs is dedicated to Absolute Silence.  To a time when I’ll put on my makeup without an audience and remember when they were there trying to help.  Remembering the help getting mascara all over my cheek and laughing which turns to tears because they’re grown.  Then I’m washing my face just like I did that time and reapplying the makeup again in silence.  I’m trying to savor those memories now and hope you do too.  Make memories to keep you comfy when the silence comes to visit.