I woke up at 3:40 this morning, cock-eyed on the pillow, head aching, nose that needed blowing. And then the thoughts started running, and I couldn’t make them stop. Couldn’t slow the flow, so I got up.
The other day, I stood at the kitchen sink scrubbing an empty peanut butter jar, oils clinging to my fingers, and my mind ran wild with all I wanted to write about. And Lala sang songs from the other room and asked me questions that I didn’t want to miss and wanted to ignore, both.
In that moment, I longed to block it out, but couldn’t. Every conversation, every squabble, every sing song, so much talking. And I answer, the other night, irritated and squinting, what? and my 11-year-old laughs hard and tells me I sound like an elderly lady who needs her hearing aid adjusted.
What?
I can’t hear, but I can’t not hear. It’s true.
At the sink, I try thinking my own thoughts, writing lines in my head so I’ll remember, but they flow like water right through my fingers and down the drain. I try to catch them, but off they go.
A few weeks ago at the office where I work once a week, I cut postcards with a paper cutter, its huge arm slicing cardstock with the same skee-rach sound over and over, hundreds of cuts. Skee-rach. I ask the receptionist and the woman in the office across from where I stand if the sound is driving them crazy.
I just block it out, they say. I don’t even hear it.
What?!
How do you not hear it?
I cannot stop hearing or seeing or feeling and I guess this is my living fully awake, and I count it blessing, but sometimes, too, I want the flow to stop so I can take a deep breath.
It keeps coming, though, the steady flow, and some pools in my hands and some swirls right on down.
Joining with the Five Minute Friday community at Lisa-Jo Baker’s. This morning began with the prompt: TRUE. Anyone relate to this little piece of my true? What’s a piece of true for you?
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
I am actually very good at blocking things out and often don’t hear things that I should because I am off in my own little worlds. Unfortunately it happens to often when my daughter is trying to get my attention. I suppose it’s a writer’s thing.
Coming to you from the Five Minute Friday Linkup. I enjoyed your post!
I guess there’s that part of it, too, Cheney — blocking things out when you want/need to hear them. Perhaps it’s two sides of the writer coin. :-) Thanks for being here today.
Ashley,
Wow! I love this post!
Your words, the way you have gathered them together to express an experience so common to so many of us.
Your words resonate….uh, so true!
Love you lady!
Makes sense that you would be able to relate, my wonderfully sensitive friend. I love you!
Soooo true…for me too. I like the words you caught! Yep, keep counting “being fully awake” a blessing even if a few words get washed away… :)
Thank you, Dea. I sure am purposing to do just that.
I often FEEL like that elderly lady who needs her hearing aid adjusted! That is a wonderful visual to get me out of my habitual “what?” reply!
Love your writing Ashley, so glad I found my way here!
It’s been a joy to connect with you, Krista. So you throw out a lot of those”what’s?!” too? Mine seem to flow especially easily in the evening hours when I am plain ol’ DONE.
Dear Dolly
Oh, O know how difficult it is to stop that thoughts that run through your mind. And we need to at times just to be quiet in Jesus’ presence to His voice. What helps me is to ask Pappa to know my racing, anxious thoughts and to whisper His peace into my mind.
Blessings XX
Mia
Absolutely. That is my life line, dear Mia. To be still and know…it’s a place I begin each day and have to go out over and over again. I like that wording, friend — “whisper His peace into my mind.”
Oh yes the whirling thoughts. Our desire to be present in our homes, with our children, and our need for quiet for silence…always duking it out. The mind is a tricky thing. I just read a great quote in Harry Potter Book Five{have I mentioned I am becoming obsessed with Harry Potter} it goes…
“the mind is not a book to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not edged on the inside of the skull be be perused…the mind is a complex and many-layered thing”
I loved this so much because it reminded me that as important and critical some disciplines, and habits are to improving our mind, our peace, our joy…it’s never gonna be an exact science. It just has to be lived out the best we can.
Someday we will be present and listing gifts, some days we will be spacey and out of humor.
Thanks for you comments on my last post, by the way.
Cheers.
Amen, Leah…that is so good — what a profound quote. Yes, indeed, the ways of this mind (and this faith) are not all science. As you say, so much is a living it out thing. A day by day journey and, to me, so much ART. Yes, a mix of structure and discipline and ALSO these unexpected things that are moved through and worked out. And perhaps that living it out, the ins and outs, through the folds and recesses of the mind is, too, where God meets us & where so much gets “worked out” in the end. Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful, meaty words. I wish we could sit and talk face to face.
oh maybe one day Ashley!
Oh my goodness! I cannot get enough of your writing, your words, your thoughts… They are beautiful and meaningful and true. I can totally relate. Thanks for sharing your true heart once again.
Tanya, thank you so much for your encouragement today. What a gift to me. I’m so glad to know, as always, that I’m not alone. I feel like that’s a huge part of why I write, by the way…to remind myself and my readers that we are not alone. We are all in this crazy thing together! :-)
Here is a profound truth, friend, and I enjoy coming here on FMF and knowing whatever you share for the prompt is true and meaningful, deep and so relatable. We do block so much out – sometimes I admit, I don’t know how not to, without going crazy – but the more we can stay open, listening, fully awake as you say, the more alive we live. I love you. (Praying this morning you feel better, too – sounds like you’ve had a cold xoxoxox)
Feeling so much better finally, Amber. Thank you, friend! I think a little bit of “block out” ability mixed with living fully awake is a good thing. Working to cultivate that myself. :-)
” I guess this is living wide awake”… Powerful how many ppl live in screen saver mode. You’re noticing your surroundings, that’s a gift. Now to ‘tune out’ the annoyance sounds that aren’t necessary!
Good point, Krystal. We don’t really want all or the other, now do we?
I love this line: “I cannot stop hearing or seeing or feeling and I guess this is my living fully awake, and I count it blessing, but sometimes, too, I want the flow to stop so I can take a deep breath.”
I often wonder if I see/sense/know/feel more than most people. You’re so right…sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes I wonder if it’s too heavy of a burden. Great thoughts today.
It sounds like you and I are made of some of the same stuff, Ashley. I do believe there are “highly-sensitives” like us that absolutely do feel more and/or more intensely than others. (Two of my girls are a case study in this difference.) Yes, you are so right. It is indeed a gift and a challenge — as most gifts are, I guess. :-)
I am totally with you, grasping and letting go and trying to hold onto words and block them out and all the noise sometimes. Sometimes it’s just so much. I’m struggling with the spaces to say the things I really need to get out and with making space to just be where I am and let the rest go. Sometimes I wish I felt less. Saw less. Because it feels like a responsibility to steward all that is there and unearthed in the moments when I see. And sometimes that feels like too much. You’ve got me thinking, friend.
Oh, Alia this is so it: “I’m struggling with the spaces to say the things I really need to get out and with making space to just be where I am and let the rest go.” I don’t know about you, but it all feels important to me lots of the time. So the wisdom for a writing mama…yeah, when to make space in the midst of all the noise and write, when to just live it — I really do need more of that.
Oh my friend… yes – to the constant noise! Some days I really am able to tune it all out – but is this really a good skill to have? Don’t I want to listen in and hear that still small voice? Don’t we want to – as you wrote – live fully awake?
Yes, to listen in, for sure. Maybe that’s what I’m really needing in the midst of all the awake living. Good point, friend.
I block it out…all too well, to the point people think I am ignoring them when in reality I never heard them because I have so completely shut out the rest of the noises except the ones I am straining to hear, or I am so focused on my inner world that I don’t hear anything period.
Interesting. I know someone just like this, Karmen. It gives me a little extra insight. Thank you.
I woke up this morning and could hear the fridge running in the kitchen. Sometimes I have to make the house absolutely quiet just to rest. I get this!
Yes, the fridge! Do you hear the TV from the other room when it’s on mute, too?
Well written! I love your descriptions and the “skew-rach”. I so remember those days…what am I saying? That was all summer for me. No space for even a sentence to form, let alone a blog post to articulate. Then, they go back to school and I have time to hear my own thoughts again. But I miss them and their voices and their questions (but no so much the arguing).
Christy @ A Heartening Life
http://www.ahearteninglife.com
My youngest is still home with me this year, Christy. I am expecting the strangeness of school year quiet to really settle in for me next year. I’m sure I’ll be missing all the noise.
I am almost too good at tuning things out sometimes. My sister in law who doesn’t have kids always gets the songs from the kid shows stuck in her head when she comes over and she asks how I can stand it. I told her I don’t even hear it anymore. It’s so much a part of my daily life that I don’t hear it. Maybe that’s not such a good thing though. That’s why I’m trying to pay better attention to the moments!
It seems like a healthy survival mechanism, if you ask me. My word, some of those kid show songs can put you through the roof. But yes, moderation (as in many things) seems to be the ideal.
Well thought of, and nicely written.
Always a gift to see you here, Uncle Don.
This, THIS is my life, too- and now, because of these words, I will count it blessing. “I cannot stop hearing or seeing or feeling and I guess this is my living fully awake, and I count it blessing, but sometimes, too, I want the flow to stop so I can take a deep breath.” THANK YOU, friend.
It’s both, is’t it? And I can imagine the sounds increase exponentially with each additional child! So your house must be really loud, friend!
oh how i relate. wanting both. to hear them in love. to block out and hear myself. xo –kris
Yes, Kris. I really do want first and foremost to LOVE. Both them and myself. Perhaps it will always need to be a moment to moment thing. A moment for listening, a moment for quiet, a moment for noise, a moment for still…..
Tis the Plight of our Sensitive Souls. God made us to pay Exquisite attention. But it can be overwhelming. I too, get surges of words making well formed sentences at awkward, inconvenient moments and think I’ll surely remember them for they are so, so, so…. then off they go. So I trust they’ll come back to me if it’s important. You spoke for so many of us here.