This week’s suggested Whiny Wednesday topic is thought-provoking:
Fearing the quiet we will have for years
How do you feel about this? Is it something you worry about? If not, what is on your mind this week?
filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
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I went back to graduate school in my 30s. I lived alone and didn’t even have a tv. I got used to the silence and now I enjoy the quiet. Even tv noise can bother, so do shops with loud music. What I fear is isolation. I fear not having anyone to talk to for long periods of time. I have my husband, I still have my parents. Losing them is my biggest fear. I feel that I have “lost” many of the friends I thought I would always have. They are busy with their own families and we have grown apart. That is a big loss. Friendships take time to build and it has become harder to really do this as I have grown older.
I had found when I was in my 30,s and 40’s a lot of my friends were rising families, and it was hard at times to maintain Friendships. But now I am 50 ish and it seems like it’s has been a great time for friends. A lot of my friends kids are grown or my older friends are empty Nestor’s and have all kinds of time. I was reading an article in real simple about friendships and it mentioned every seven years, we have go thrust Eccles with friends. I found that comforting due to I can see how my friendships have changed and evolved and although at times it is painful,and sad, there are still friends with me that want to share my life. Occasionally I wonder if I should have tried harder after our failed adoption to get back on the horse so to speak and try again. But due to emotiona. Pain it caused me and my husband , I felt being kind to myself was not continuing to pursue this sad drea,and keeping my life on hold for when I would become a mother. As I have become more comfortable with my self over the past 3 years, the silence or being alone is not as fast ary as I thought before. Thanks for the topic , it was very help Full!
I notice the quiet sometimes, on warm summer days when the windows are open, and we can hear the kids next door playing outside. But usually I’m listening to my favourite radio programmes (equivalent of NPR), or have music on, so I’m not haunted by silence. In fact, sometimes I adore having absolute quiet (for example on a Sunday afternoon), as I recognise it is a treat that parents don’t often get, and so I try not to take it for granted.
The silence that I struggle with is driving home after work in the winter months. It gets dark early, and I just feel like every house I pass has a family sitting around the dinner table all together and it’s all warm and cozy with a light burning in the window….
It hurts doesn’t it when you see others experiencing what you should have had and wanted for you but sadly lost out on.
Define quiet. 🙂 Our house with just us and the dog is never quiet. Either the music is blaring Zeppelin, an action movie is shaking the house, or someone (usually me) is yelling at the refs’ poor play calling of a sports game on the tele…..
I identify with all of these posts but do feel the fear behind Iris’s post. I too used to worry terribly about when my parents are gone, if anything should happen to my husband I will have no-one. I have no blood nieces or newphews, my brother is very wrapped up in his life and has never bothered with me. So I worried alot with who would be around (friends seem very transient whether with or without children), I have learnt to trust that there will be people around at differnet stages of life as they have been up till now, they will come and go. Hopefully hubby will be around and we will have eachother as we have up till now. I think less about the future and more about now and I know I will join things or maybe get a dog should I be completley alone! I think equally I will be ok with my own company and my movies – I love science fiction and watch favourites over and over! Its taken a while to let go of what I dreamed of – a big family with generations to come and family birthdays and parties is set firmly as what makes us happy when I now realise – its not going to be that way but its ok. Its a different norm – more peaceful perhaps and more based on what I want to do rather than full of obligations! Of course, given the choice I would choose the big family, with all its dramas. The choice has gone and reality is taking me on a different life to the one I dreamed of for all my life. I don’t want to wait on a dream and reasure myself that my life is what I make of it now and not living on the edge of a hoped for life, waiting, waiting. Its now living in the now – with every moment counting.