Quiet

I am probably the most quiet person I know. I am simply not oriented toward saying things out loud. Sometimes I think it comes from being shy, but other times it just comes from wanting to be still and silent. I crave being alone and sitting, staring out my window and letting thoughts come and go as they will.

I don’t know when it first started. I do remember the first day of Kindergarten, not wanting my mother to leave me while being so curious about what would happen in this new place. I went to a Montessori school run by hippies and we did a lot of dancing and singing, as I recall. But recess was difficult for me. How did everyone else know how to talk to each other? I found a best friend and stuck by him, doing everything with him. It’s been my strategy ever since.

Maybe it’s why I have such a compulsion to write all the time. I’ve had it all my life, the love of books and the love of producing words. It’s like what I have to say is bottled up inside and it can only come out through my hands instead of my mouth. Talking with people leads to unexpected and complicated places, unpredictable and frightening. Writing means that I can say what I mean and explain it fully.

I’d like to take more chances with conversation. It’s my challenge. I have a very sensitive core that I protect with the silence, but I’d like to have the courage to say stupid things and have them forgiven. I’m not afraid of disagreement and I generally don’t get angry at most things. I’m afraid of offending through my conversation and saying something wrong, being misunderstood and misinterpreted. But being silent means that people project all kinds of emotions on me as they try to read me, and in many ways it’s worse than saying something stupid. People think I’m judging them when really I’m a mess of anxiety and tension.

There is value in silence, though. There is listening and really hearing. It leaves open the possibility of understanding other people in a different way. And it challenges me to unfold and open up, every day. I don’t know how to be a different person but I am learning to share myself and to take chances, to be vulnerable.