Quiet Spaces, Loud Noise.

I used to search for quite spaces. Small nooks where I could hide and close my eyes. Relinquish myself to a trance, a deep meditation. In that subspace I felt calm, nothing could harm me. No emotion was too grand to take over. In the small quite spaces lived a world all to my-self. I faced all my fears there, had therapy there, found forgiveness for my-self and for others. There too is where I started to change.

I was 13 when I started to re-invent myself. Some of my deepest fantasies in the quite space, were about me dominating people with my charisma, extrovert-ness, etc. I thirsted for power, for influence. I wanted to be the it girl. I wanted others to always seek me, I wanted to be their idol, their everything.

I would find little corners, view of me blocked from peeping eyes and gorged myself on books on power, persuasion, and manipulation. I learned how to make people fall in love with me. In the years that followed I went from small spaces to big rooms, from being alone to never alone, from being loved by few to being loved by all, from quite spaces to loud noises, slow days to endless days. I worked tirelessly to climb ladders and to being at the top always, in everything. I made sure that I was in everyone’s thoughts, all their sightlines should have me in it - always.

I started by changing my hair, I went up a tone from my own and added subtle highlights. Then I started to wear contacts a shade brighter than my own eyes to make them stand out more. I always had a tinted, slightly glossed lip. I wore a tinted moisturizer to even my skin tone, a blush the color of my face flushed from laughter, bronzer but not too much and a mist for a natural, dewy glow. I was meticulous about how I wore my mascara. It needed to elongate my lashes, make my eyes pop but not look like I was wearing any. I learned color theory to find colors that complemented my skin tone. Experimented with clothing to find silhouettes that shaped my body perfectly. I was able to go into different genres of styles and still look like me. I made it look effortless; I made it look like I woke up like that.

I wasn’t involved in any clubs, but I made friends with club leaders during our regular classes. I had a designated table in the lunchroom and people would flock to it at lunch time for a coveted seat there. My spot was always guaranteed. I volunteered and stood up for the small guys. No one bullied anyone when I was around but my friends where those whose families had influence. Families who could put in a good word for me. I worked at the country club to show off my work ethic. Tutored spoiled brats to look good for the teachers. Excelled in academics to look good for colleges. I was smart enough to be smarter than most but not too smart to be intimating. Kind enough to be shown kindness, smiled at the right time, whispered at the right time. I was enough at everything to be envied and compared to. Any talk against me was recounted as jealousy from a hater. I took these skills, all the knowledge and used it to evolve continuously throughout the years. Every situation called upon me to be the best. Everything was about what I wanted and how I wanted it. Thankfully I was an only child and the apple of my parents’ eyes. I competed with only myself.

17 years later, I found myself in the middle of a room, alone, the sun was shinning bright, and it was quiet. Deafeningly quiet. It had been years since I had heard that kind of silence, felt that kind of stillness. I was suddenly filled with fear. I felt this terror crawl from the pit of my stomach up my throat and come out of me with a cry. I moaned in pain and clutched at my stomach. I felt chills run through my body. I wished I could die. I crumpled into myself whimpering. I stayed like that for minuets that felt like hours. What seemed like days later, there was a knock on my door, finally shacking me out of that stupor. I was able to breath again knowing that there was someone on the other side. The knocking continued and I took deep breaths to still my trembling. I opened the door to a bouquet of roses. The note attached had a message for a secrete admirer – I will always love you. I was still loved, and I wasn’t alone. It was no longer quiet.

As the days went on though, I stared at those roses. I watched them bloom furiously, gloriously. I watched the moment they peaked in beauty and then watched as they curled back into themselves and grow frail. It took weeks for them to completely dry and turn to specks when crumpled in my hands. People started to take notice of my quieter disposition. I attributed it to work, to life stresses, to the things that make all of us adults go quiet.

Slowly the spaces were too loud. All that love felt suffocating, people wanted too much from me and I felt like they needed none of it. I wanted to extract myself out of my life but no where was safe. There was no small quiet space to escape too. I was everywhere, I was everything and yet I desired to be nothing. I would revisit that initial moment of rediscovered quietness and wondered at that fear. Trying to name the terror. Pinpoint when it started to grow in me, waiting for the moment to make itself known. The quiet space had returned for me.

Things started to feel chaotic with my mind and emotions in turmoil. I knew not who I was and who I wanted to be. And yet still the quiet scared me. I couldn’t hear myself through all the thoughts and voices in my mind. I didn’t feel safe alone or with others. I wondered at their motives. I wondered at mine. Evidently, I was bound for a journey not of my own willingness to change when the quiet space returned to me. There was something to learn but I couldn’t fall into those small quiet spaces comfortably anymore. I wonder when I lost those privileges.