thoughts for the new year

Written 12.28.17

11:49pm

I've come to realize that I am terrified by silence.

Even now, writing this, I've sort of had to "fight" the silence. It's midnight. I'm in my dad's room upstairs, and except for the last sounds of my brothers getting ready for bed, it's quiet. But I've had to make a conscious effort to come up here and decide to write, instead of grabbing my phone. When given the options of doing something deliberate and meditative, or something else I'll usually choose the latter option.

It's not to say that I don't like peace or quiet-- I do. I like it when things are calm, and drama is nonexistent. I'll tell my siblings to shush periodically throughout the day. But there's a difference: that kind of quiet is not the same as  s i l e n c e .

The unnerving, unsettling, uncomfortable silence when in a small room, alone. The kind of silence that magnifies your thoughts and feelings. The kind of silence in the car that makes you squirm when there's no radio or podcast to listen to.

I consider myself a prayerful kinda gal. I actually love praying-- out loud, I suppose. You can't get much better than the rosary, or chanting. So I guess I like praying, but only the easy kind. The rosary isn't necessarily mindless, but compared to a serious holy hour, it seems a cake walk.

Why?

I see myself running into the same rut of lukewarmness constantly. I've only recently realized that it probably stems from a lack of intentional, DAILY silence. Plain uninterrupted and meditative silence.

And I kick myself for it. It sounds so low, so base that I can't sit still for so short a time! But I suppose it's more than that-- it's not just that I can't sit still, but that I've become complacent, that I'm not comfortable enough with me somehow anymore. How could I ever say I possessed self-control, self-mastery, or any kind of knowledge of myself before? And I do want self-control, self-mastery, and knowledge of me.

Real goals for a new year.