Wishes

What I wish for this year, this decade: 

Quiet

Time

Space

And yet, these are the things that frighten me the most. These are the things I’ve spent my life assiduously avoiding.

Quiet. My tired, overwhelmed brain craves quiet.

Quiet to think, and—is this even possible?—time to sit and not think.

The constant soundtrack of podcasts, cable news, along with my own inner monologue of worries, fears, judgments, and criticisms has worn me out. I’m tired. I crave quiet.

And yet, I fear it and avoid it.

Am I the only one who regularly avoids and fears that which they know, really know, is good for them?

Time. To read. To write. To organize the kitchen cupboards I’ve never organized (but have wanted to) since we moved into this house 18 months ago. To exercise. To be more fully awake and engaged in this world. To talk but also to listen. To be. To be quiet.

You do this, too, I think: make it busy to avoid the thing.

That thing…the thing you crave the most, but also fear the most. Or maybe I’m the only one.

I can have time to read, write, organize the kitchen cupboards, exercise, take classes, garden, etc. I can. I’m extraordinarily lucky.

And yet. And yet. I scroll the news headlines dozens of times a day. I check my email dozens (or more, when the anxiety is really, really bad) of times a day. I wander the house and the world around me in a stupor, searching for the next thing to distract me from the fear of what I crave most: quiet, space, time, and myself. I exhaust myself and rob myself of the very time I crave.

Space. My world is small. This is both good and bad. My house and my family are small, and I would have it no other way. I live in a smallish town and I love it very much.

But. The other smallness. The smallness of what I allow myself to see, feel, do (or not see, feel, do). I’m limited by my anxiety. By my insomnia. By vertigo. And by fear. My nearly constant companion.

And, so, on the bad days, I feel trapped in my own little world, unable to get out of my own way long enough to do anything. I can see the possibilities, but I can’t allow myself to get to them.

2020.

May the year be open, clear, quiet, and spacious.

May the year be the road that leads me to find me, as I am.