Empty is Just Full of Things You Can't See.

Both my parents work. I live in a town with no good friends nearby. I don't have a job. My two friends who I see on a weekly basis have been away the past few days. All these things conspire to force me back inside my own head.

It's not like I don't like it in here. It's warm and comfortable and somewhat soporific. Rather than defining myself by the endless stream of words that come out of my life, I get to be defined by the shapeless, near-instinctual quality of pure thought. But I love words, and I love people, so pretty soon all this silence becomes suffocating. I start to wonder how many hours it's been since I've said anything, how long I've gone without real human interaction. I start to understand the mentality of the Crazy Cat Lady.

But then there's moments of pure interior joy. Moments when I really and truly see the limitations words place on me, when I know that there's a realm of thought where things make sense without needing to have syllables or prepositions. And there's moments when I realize what a great gift it is to be at ease in my own company. Because one of the saddest things I know is people who can't stand to hear their own thoughts, who spend their whole life drowning that still, small, interior voice out with drink and friends and tv and noise noise noise. So as much as I may chafe at the quietness that is my life right now, I also rejoice in the fact that sometimes silence really is more profound than words.