I’ve always been a talker. I remember my mom telling people I talked for my brother so much it was a wonder he learned to talk at all.
I remember getting quiet as a teen. Buckets of emotions, not feeling comfortable in my own body, people thinking they knew me and the type of person I was (the usual teen stuff).
I remember the quiet time in my twenties where I was struggling to find who I was as a person. Making dumb decisions based on emotional responses, being foolish enough to give so much time and energy to companies, management, and individuals that would never reciprocate.
In my thirties quiet time was time to heal. To recover from the worst carrier choice of my life (hopefully), to truly take the mask off and look in the mirror, and the hardest of all, heal from the loss of loved ones. Any introspective adult will tell you, healing multiple wounds is rarely (ever?) quick and/or painless.
Now, as this old bird flies toward 40, I find myself quiet for yet another reason. I feel peace. Not monk level by any means, but I feel it. That small little ball of warm light. It grows. Slowly but gradually. I dug it out of all the grime and muck, I cleaned it like a little duck on a Dawn commercial. I feel pride when I think of my little light ball. It’s like the high you get when you’ve been working out and it starts paying off. When the muscles start to reappear and you get a little extra wiggle and spring in your step.
That little ball lends me patience for others, it reminds me what I know to be true, it brings be back to center, it reassures me I’m worthy and able when things get rough, it’s a pat on the back, a cheer from the distance, a smile at a lame joke. My light ball is little but more than a little badass.
Each decade I move forward better, stronger, more resilient than the last. I am a perpetual work in process. Perfect by no means. But some would argue a synonym for perfect could be boring.
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or objects.” ~Al Einstein
Maybe not so quiet after all. 😁
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