The sound of me is....?

As a mother I constantly have these moments of feeling bad about how I think, feel and act, in some situations, with my kids. It might be because I feel I’m being unfair to them: they don’t know that even though they don’t really do something wrong or bad, they do something wrong or bad. Complicated, but still true.

I have always been one of those individuals who need alone time. Time when I can gather myself. Find myself and become at peace with me and my life before I stray too far into a state of discontent. I know myself, and I know that if I let myself do that, I turn into a shrew not pleasant to be around at all. If mum is unhappy, no one else is allowed to be happy.

I am always very present in our home, when I am at home, but never as strong as when I feel like I’m on a “warpath”. Not sure who to be displeased with, but with a strong feeling there is something or someone not quite at place.

The unfairness in this is that deep down I know that what’s not at place is me, and that it is my disability to arrange alone-time for myself which causes me problems, and my shrewish behavior.

By alone-time I mean a short time, an hour, and if I am lucky maybe even more time of continuance, when I can choose what to focus on.

Time when I don’t have to deal with laughing and playing (and the clanking that brings about), and constant talking: questions asked in search of answers and help. Friends add to the number of children running through the doors and up and down staircases, opening the fridge in search of something cool to drink. They chew, swallow, slurpe, talk, sing, play games, watch TV…

They make the dog click his claws excessively on the wooden floor, makes him growl, he also barks when he hears someone outside, or at unsuspecting passer-bys with a dog, almost causing nervous breakdowns with his harassing attack… To merely live creates sounds and noises. I can’t very well blame my kids for living, can I.

Often I miss to surround myself with my own noise and sounds; the turn of the pages of a book, the music complimenting my taste and mood, the whisker from my socks when I cross a room, the sound of breathing (especially from my dog), the soft clicking of my keyboard… all the sounds I know are there, but which drown in the sounds of life and living in my house.

One of the sounds I like the best is the sound of silence. There is something healing about listening to emptiness holding the history, the stories, the truths about forever. You sit there and listen, and you can feel the knowledge of how all the answers are in it so tense you can almost taste it.

Crisp, early Sunday mornings with a mug of coffee, sitting on my porch, is magic as well. No man or engine to break the sounds of nature reviving.

Ok, maybe a bit weird, but everything is changing. Nothing is like it used to be, and with changes sounds are added or removed from our surroundings. It’s always been like that, but silence has always been the same… I think. Maybe I am wrong, but I imagine it is so.

I wonder what is the sound of me. When people think about me, what sound do they think of defines me?