Sunday, January 26, 2014

Quiet Time

Frequently, I find that I am in need of quiet time, meaning either being in silence, or being in the midst of a quiet noise level that I can handle. Many times I go to a coffee shop expecting to hear quiet conversation among jingles and tinkles of cups and silverware. That's the kind of noise I can handle; I can still keep track of my own thoughts. Although, this is not always what I encounter. Sometimes it's full of loud conversations, "background music" which is actually in the foreground, invading my thoughts because I know the words to the song. People meeting up with each other and excitedly yelling, "Hey! Hi! I haven't see you in so long!" Or "Oh hi! Fancy meeting you here!" Then they proceed to sit down and take over my quiet space.  This makes me feel irritable.

 I am an introvert and I need quiet in order to process just exactly what I have been through. When I need to concentrate on my own thoughts and am not able to, I get irritated. Unfortunately this happens a lot with my son. He is a normal five year old boy who makes noise playing and jumps off the furniture. I cannot think when this is going on so, I join him; well, not to jump off the furniture. But, I try to take my mind off of my grief and trauma by interacting with him. Playing. It is difficult when the very person you love most in the world shares the DNA of the one who was lost. My son is a constant reminder that R is gone and of how he died.

Sometimes playing with my son for 15-20 minutes is all that is needed for him to be satisfied with my company, and then I can go back and try to read, think, or write. Sometimes it's all I need as well, to give my brain a break so that I can go back to it again without being irritable. It doesn't always make it go away completely. But it is an attempt.

I believe the reason for the irritability is that there is not room for much else in my brain right now, except to process this journey. I go back to day 1 (the day that R killed himself), I go through everything that happened that afternoon and evening, all the way until the end of the week when the funeral happened. Then I keep going chronologically through the major events that happened the year after. All of the "firsts" without R. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, getting  my own apartment, trying to get through nursing school, failing nursing school, moving to another state, failing again...the list goes on as my life goes on. Many times I ask myself how I got to where I am today in this town- and I go back over those events in my head, over and over again. When I think about my life, there is a distinct line I have drawn: a before IT happened and after IT happened. My life is separated into this divide.

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