CHRONICLES OF A LUMPY PERSON: QUIET PLEASE...I'M THINKING!

It's quiet in my house.

I don't like the quiet.

I can't hide from myself when it's quiet.

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Today I submitted an article to a well known magazine which gave clear instructions on how it should be written. Obviously borrowed from a high school English curriculum, the article is to have " a beginning, a middle and an end" and "must flow".

Is that how you do it!!!

My technique is totally different. First I decide I feel like writing. Then I sit at the computer and write the first thing that comes to my mind. And then we take it from there and I type and type and type. Some days it's cathartic. Some days funny. Many days it's just dribble. I have no plan and no method. I'd make a rotten English teacher.

Today the quiet was my starting point. After twenty years of children, noise, schedules and clutter in this house ITS NOW SO QUIET. I don't do quiet well. I've always kept busy and have thrived from being at work surrounded by people. I am naturally loud. My whole family is loud. WHEREVER we are, there is noise and until recently I thought that was good.

For some reason I thought back to after my first mastectomy when I was having trouble with drains in the middle of a breast reconstruction. I only had six weeks of leave and it was nowhere near enough because of the drain problems. I should have asked for more leave. I know that now. But I decided to forget about the problems I was having because I wanted to be at work where it was noisy and where I didn't think about cancer and stuff. So back to work I went, drains still in place. With the benefit of hindsight I can now say that was madness. Even when one charming young man jokingly pretended to cut one of the tubes, I stayed. It was better than being at home and having to think.

But it gets worse...so much worse.

Just before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had started a long process to achieve a status awarded to exemplary teachers. It took me three years and it kept me super busy. Work, kids, husband, family and in the evening I would work on my submission. One night I did have a " moment" when I realised it was 1 am and I would have to be up in five hours. Why was I doing this? Because keeping busy was my way. The quiet was scary. Having nothing to do was unheard of and it meant that if I was busy I wouldn't have to think.

And thats the way its been till very recently.

In between visits to Perth, there have been the occasional weeks like this one at home where its quiet and the most noise is the TV or the dogs down the road barking. Its uncomfortable and the first thing I did initially was revert to form. I needed to fill in my time. I decided to study. Can't be wasting all this time can we? The reaction was immediate. Stress levels went up and worry about costs and time management started to fill my brain.

I almost signed up but someone put me straight. " Stop trying to justify your time off. Enjoy it. Sleep in. Do fun stuff". It was like a slap but I pressed the x on the computer screen and moved away.

I'm trying to learn to live with the quiet. I'm reading, writing and thinking about the future. I'm also thinking about the past, especially the last eight years. Its hard to come to terms with it all, but its interesting how stories and feelings long submerged come flying back up when you let them. (Eg I had forgotten about the idiot kid who tried to cut my drains and how the incident made me feel). And I'm learning that you can't put them behind you if you don't think them out.

Trying to come to terms with the past opens up possibilities for the future. At the moment, I feel the need for change. Maybe with time and more quiet my brain will sort through it all and show me the way.