When Silence is a Love Song

Hello!

I stopped posting in December, both on the blog and on Instagram, telling myself I’d just take a break over Christmas and New Year’s, and that I’d be back in Jan.

It’s May. It’s halfway through May. And I’m writing this with such an odd mixture of guilt, and anxiety, but also a strange exultation.

These months of silence have, on the whole, been good ones. I’m going to say/write it, and I’m not going to worry about sounding boastful, because I would love for you, the people I know and love and whom I’m addressing in my head when I write, to read this, and know what’s been going on in my head and in my life, and how happy and hopeful I (sometimes) feel nowadays. Because I am not boasting, but trying to tell you all how much I love you and am grateful to have you (because the words would sound weird if spoken).

These have been good months.

Nanowrimo 2022 bore fruit. The harvest has been bountiful. I finished my novel. Over the years I must have started dozens of writing projects, and never, not once, gone beyond perhaps ten pages. I’ve actually finished a whole novel. In fact, in defiance of common sense and advice, I finished a trilogy, plus a sort of Book 2.5, a companion novel from the POV of another key character to complement the main three books. It’s a fantasy/romance series, and I’m sending queries to literary agents, trying to market Book 1. We’ll see how that goes!

But what made me even happier than finishing the books—is the sheer support I received. From my bats (ie my best friends from Secondary school) responding with patience and encouragement to my insane and usually context-less texts, to the people who offered to read the manuscript and actually gave up their time to finish the darn things, to Tara who’s not just read the thing, and said all the encouraging things, but actually helped me craft the synopsis and query letter—I sit here now and think, I am not alone. It’s an unspeakably wonderful feeling.

I celebrated my birthday this year. This sounds like such an odd thing to be happy about, but for more than a decade I’ve truly never wanted to celebrate my birthday, because deep down, I couldn’t see anything worth celebrating. Neither the person, nor the event. But this time, I deliberately set out to do something different. Who was it said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?” (I know this quote is attributed to Einstein, but I’ve also seen articles debunking that.) And I’m so glad I did. I (re)learned something which, I suspect, will seem self-evident to anyone else, but which to me was/is a revelation: time on its own has absolutely no meaning; it is I who can give meaning and significance to my time. Milestones are not external, but markers within the mind. So for decades, my birthday was in a way meaningless, because I never took the trouble to make it so. But I’ve found the trick now. In a way, I’ve found new ways to work with my time, to give meaning to it.

But I’m not just tearily, soppily happy and proud I actually did something different—I’m thinking, rather, of the birthday wishes which reached me, and Anu not giving up and continuing to text me even though I pulled my usual disappearing act, and the fellows sending me flowers. Each and every text was a reminder: You are not alone. And I’m grateful, and am storing up these reminders for when the darkness and the odd, twisted thoughts come again.

I’ve lost 10 kg. I’m exercising again. I no longer pant like a bellows when I climb stairs. I can bend over and touch my fingers to the ground now. This is partly a cosmetic issue—but cosmetic issues matter. I like who I see in the mirror better now, and that matters.

I’m stepping out of the house and attending events. Networking events. D&D games. Meeting new people. And I’m discovering—I’m really not as awkward and unlikable as I thought I am. Does the anxiety still set in? Sure. But I’ve found—and am still finding—ways to cope with it, soothe it, acknowledge it and then put it away. I’m also discovering—people are generally very, very kind, and friendly, and obliging. And I like meeting new people. Now that was a revelation. For as long as I can remember I’ve had this idea that I am The Hermit, the Shy One, the Misanthrope. Well, alright, I still need a great deal of time to process thoughts and emotions after an event, and I still run into that weird wall sometimes, when I’m Just Done and Will Not Smile Anymore—but no, I’m finding that I genuinely like meeting new people. It’s exciting. I never know what they’re going to say next. I like asking them why. I like hearing their stories. Why did I spend so many years telling myself this story that I’m a loner and a misfit?

This is the one of the bits about the last few months which hasn’t been so great. Because the more new things I experience, the more I realise it is I who held myself back for so long. It’s almost a sort of grief I feel, when I sit and think about all the things I might have missed out on. And it’s so tempting for the mind to spiral down the path of, why?

I refuse to go down that path. The why only matters insofar as it may be a way to learn, to not repeat the cycle. But apart from that, what matters is not to retreat into the mind like I always did, but to keep on doing new things, keep on going out there into the world, keep on connecting to others.

Which is why I’m writing this, and putting all the thoughts which I could never, ever actually say out loud out there. Because it runs against the grain of my perfectionism (can’t post until you have the whole month’s content plan out!), and my guilt (you fell off the wagon; you don’t deserve to get back on), and most of all, that dark voice which wants me to feel small (no one cares, and your writing is pedestrian and your ideas childish). I’m going to write this, and publish it, precisely because to do so would run counter to every harmful impulse which haunts me. It’s an exorcism.

And a love song. I hope you can hear all of it—my joy and my gratitude and my wonder that I have you in my life. I hope you can hear what you’ve gifted me with—confidence and fortitude and the strength to carry on, and change and not be bound to the past.

Sometimes what matters is not that the beloved gives a particular response. Sometimes what matters, first, is that the song be sung.