The thundering silence

Sometimes it feels like I've had enough of the day rather early at night. I went off to bed last night and lay there watching telly for a bit. Whether it's just me or it genuinely is the case, to me it was about 20 channels of digital free to air shit and I wasn't interested. I stuff around on the PC for a bit. It's interactive, not like sitting there like a vegetable watching shit. My head is going too fast for such banality and the mundane. Eventually I turn off the light and start going to sleep. 

David is still at work and will be home in about an hour or so. My daughter has gone to sleep already as she's doing the early shift at her work in the morning. All three cats are sleeping in the lounge room. The house is quiet. The heavy curtains block out the  street light outside and the room is dark. I close my eyes.......

I'm feeling uncomfortable, not physically but mentally. I ask myself why is this, and notice anxiety. My mind drifts back to the past. Flashes of pain, I skip from memory to memory. Starting to doubt that things will ever be better than what's already happened, the anxiety increases. Doubts swirl in my head; doubts that life will ever be more than lurching from one crisis to the next and dealing with more pain. That's the way it's always been for me so far, why should the future be any different? My self esteem shudders. I take a deep breath and tears well up.

The house is still dark and quiet.

I see what's happening and set about using the coping mechanisms I've been learning about. My mind is doing what it's evolved to do; think of the worst and prepare for it. Humans as a species have survived  because of this (and others things); be prepared for the worst, expect danger. Survival. My mind is simply the product of evolution, I can't change what it does. I can however recognise that in preparing  for the worst my mind isn't predicting  the worst. I stand back from my thoughts and realise that they're just thoughts, not truth.

Remembering what I've learnt, I start to bring myself back to the present. The past in gone, the future is unpredictable. The only true reality is the present. Listening, I hear myself breathing, become conscious of the way the air fills my lungs and is expelled. The traffic, unnoticeable until now, softly whisking past outside. I notice the gaps in the traffic as the traffic lights change down the road. The gusting winds have dropped off a bit from earlier. I feel my head on the pillow, noticing how it feels. Slowly I come back to the present reality. My mind's cacophony fades. I breath deeply, Relief. 

I'm still feeling doubtful and a bit anxious, but I've avoided the worst. This happens to me a lot, almost regularly. It's the worst if it happens in those times of quiet. When there's nothing else to fill my head, that silence can become a thundering waking nightmare. 

It's over now, for the moment.


Thanks to Rob's blog for this picture.