That time no one talks about

I’ve always been one to moan about the lack of “me time” in my life. In fact, when I was having counselling for my Generalised Anxiety Disorder, one of the things we built in to my plan was to find at least ten minutes a day when I could be on my own and just be silent.

You see, I always used to crave silence. My job means I’m always talking, or surrounded by people who are talking, or who are playing music and sometimes the cacophony in my head would just get to the point where I thought it was going to explode. Add to that the spaghetti of worrying thoughts that I suffer from occasionally and you can see why I wanted to learn to meditate.

Now, without Mum here, I can’t bear silence. Silence seems to laugh at me, particularly at home. This house makes some odd noises when there’s nothing else going on. Mum had always either got the TV or the radio on. Not for music, she wasn’t a big one for music, but for the voices, which she loved. So you see – I would go from a job where there were voices voices voices, to a house where there was similar. Now I go from one extreme to the other.

I don’t mind my own company, never have. Being an only child who grew up in the middle of nowhere means I’ve had to make own fun a lot of the time and got used to being on my own. I didn’t know the meaning of on my own until now. I make sure I’m surrounded by people a lot of the time, but when I shut my front door there’s just me and the cat, and to be honest she’s not the best conversationalist in the world. I miss having someone asking me how my day’s been. I miss having companionable silence. I miss being able to rant and rave about the world without being judged. It really does feel like my entire support system has gone. Granted, I have brilliant friends who will listen when I need them, but I do sometimes feel like they have their own lives to lead and don’t need to hear from someone who’s feeling sorry for herself, lost in a world that doesn’t love her any more. Grief is a lonely place it turns out.

I had a text from someone today telling me that she’d spotted me in the magazine for Northampton General Hospital. I’d sent a link to the blog post I’d written about organ donation to the press officer at the hospital, and they’ve turned it in to a nice piece for their autumn edition. I feel so proud seeing it in there. The lovely picture of Mum that I took the day she came out of the hospital is included, and then there’s a picture of me which was taken when I used to work at BBC 5Live for my column at the Chronicle and Echo. I put the magazine in my bag on the way home from work this evening with the intent to show Mum when I got home…..

The sound of silence has never been so loud.

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