Between living on a very busy street and the construction projects surrounding me, life here is so incredibly loud. Then all summer long I had my super loud window air conditioners on non-stop, which helped drown out the construction somewhat I guess, but I literally haven't had a moment's peace in so long. Ever since I was little I've kept the tv on almost constantly. I grew up alone, and it was a way to keep me company, so it's a habit I have never broken since I'm still alone all the time as an adult. I'm saying all of this because tonight I turned the tv off. Now that my air conditioners are off again, the silence is sooooooooo nice. I mean, "silence" in relative terms since I do still live on a noisy street so it's never totally quiet. But still. Whatever bits of less noise I can find are really, really great right now. And the longer I had the tv off, the less I wanted to turn it back on.
My son is not speaking to me right now. It's been over two weeks, no texts or anything. After 23 years of caring for him, of him being the absolute center of my world, the gravity keeping me tethered to the ground, him slipping away from me has been monumentally devastating. I know it won't last forever and at some point we'll be able to get back to things, but right now I can't control any of that, it's all on him. This situation has made me think about my life in a very different way. I mean, I'm his mom, so being a mom is the most important thing I have ever done -- separating myself as a person from the version of myself that's a mom, is... not something I ever thought I would have to do. It's making me see myself in this weird new perspective, and I don't know who that me is. It's all very unsettling. Who would I have been the past 23 years if I had never been a mom? Where would I have gone, and with whom? It's like that quantum theory that every path in your life that can be taken does happen in alternate timelines, in alternate dimensions. Having my son is never something I have for one second regretted, so I honestly have never really thought about this before.
The silence from turning off the tv tonight, and bathing in the break from the noise is so much like what's happening now with my son. I only just realized it. Always so caught up with things just being what they are, each day, each person in my life playing a certain role, certain habits and routines. Shutting those things down has left this massive chasm in my brain where I can see myself as I really am. See how pointless and trivial my existence has been the past few years. How little joy I have. How much I have stopped even looking at the world in any real way. I have been entirely, intentionally, turning away from... everything. This silence makes me miss the way I used to be. I don't know if there is any way to get any of that back, but I do know that I need to try to be more than what I am right now...