Silent All These Years

I've been quiet.  For a non-stop-thinking person with many opinions and a burning desire to write, I've been quiet.  I've been eating documentaries and audiobooks...because reading books doesn't allow for multi-tasking.  I fold laundry and put away dishes with a constant editorial going on in the back of my mind.  Maybe this is why I'm tired all the time.  Maybe it's because I have four kids.  Maybe it's because I want answers.  I want to figure things out.  I want to know where we came from, and I want to know where we are going.  I want to know why our government if failing us, and why those who ask questions are labeled "conspiracy theorists" and discarded.  I want to know god.  I want to know the truth of reality...if there is a reality.

And so, I have been quiet, because many of those things are such that we cannot know.  We can speculate and blow wind, as it were.  I'm too tired for that.  But I'm also tired of being quiet.  There is a fine balance between speaking out because I feel so compelled and allowing my voice to be drowned out by fear.  It is ironic that a search for truth is something that can be feared, though that has been the case since the dawn of time.  We fear what we do not understand, which is much.

I revisited what I've written here over the years, and though I still struggle with some of the same things, I can see where I am now a stronger person.  I am still afraid of being misunderstood and disliked.  I really do just want everyone to get along.  I read somewhere that the only way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, do nothing, be nothing (Aristotle?).  That's just not an option for me.  In the past, I understood that fear was something to avoid; now I see it as a symptom of something that needs to be addressed. There are some things we should certainly just keep to ourselves, but there are other things rattling around in my head begging to get out.  My hope is that I may help or inspire someone; my fear is that I will be judged and discarded.  It is funny how we are so wrapped up in our experiences, dying with anxiety about the prospect of singing a karaoke song...meanwhile everyone at the bar really doesn't really give a shit what you do.  Our spirit is a kite that should fly free, guided by just one string....but we allow hundreds of other strings to tangle and misdirect us.  Snip snip snip, I say.