I drove down Winnetka Street. I switched off the radio.
There’s nothing good playing these days.
The silence in my car made me feel uncomfortable. I was
alone with my own thoughts. And that scared me.
Since moving back to the US a month and half ago after
living in East Asia for two years, silence is not something I have experienced.
At first I didn’t hear it because I felt so overwhelmed and bombarded with
culture shock all up in my face constantly. At some point I had to stop
processing at the same rate I was experiencing in order to stay sane. I was
going through a kind of shock and I switched to survival mode. One day at a
time. One day at a time, I would tell myself. Then I didn’t experience silence
because all I could hear was my own voice and the voices of everyone around me.
People wanted answers and I wanted them too. I talked a lot because it was the
only thing I knew how to do. I’m not sure what I talked about but talking about
Asia gave me a moment’s relief from not knowing how to handle my current
reality of not being in Asia. Silence
and processing got delayed again when my plans for this next year and this
coming semester fell through. I was sent into a scramble trying to sort out my
life, where I’d live, what I’d do, and how to pay for it all. Silence only exacerbated
the loneliness I was feeling; the loneliness that we all experience when we’re
walking through something that we alone simply must walk through. Then silence
was postponed because I was afraid of it. I was so afraid I’d discover that I
was falling apart. I was so emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausted that
I just couldn’t handle sitting down and looking myself in the eye. I tried a
few times to sit down and intentionally process the transition I’m in the middle
of, but every time I’d try to let myself feel something I would instantly
become intensely sleepy. Just the thought of thinking through things actually
physically made my eyelids heavy and my head get fuzzy. And I really would fall
asleep – a confused, escapist kind of sleep. I couldn’t figure out how to
express or define how I was doing and where I was at. I couldn’t process, not
because I didn’t want to but because I simply had no energy. And honestly, I
was afraid. I was afraid to face the pain, struggle, and stress. I just wanted
to be okay.
But there was nothing good on the radio. So I switched it
off. And I suddenly found myself trapped in silence. My hand reached to turn
the radio back on but I paused. No, I thought, I will not run. It was just me
in my car with no voice to be distracted by, only the one inside to listen to.
For a while I just drove in the quiet. Then all of a sudden, tears began to
pour down my cheeks. And I let them. I realized I was crying not because I was
falling apart, not because I was sad, not because I was stressed out, not
because I was overwhelmed. I was crying simply because I just didn’t have any
words (which as an extremely verbose person is a rarity). I wasn’t crying sad tears. I wasn’t crying happy tears. I was just
crying because out of all the ways to express how I was doing and where I was
at, tears seemed like the only thing that would hold and express it all. I just
didn’t and still don’t have any words. No words to try to describe what I’ve
seen, what I’ve felt, who I’ve been these past two years in Asia. No words to
capture the lessons I’ve learned in transitioning to life back in America. No
words. I’m sure there are words out there. I just don’t know how to say them
right now. The joy I know deep down, the pain I’m breathing through, the
experiences that are changing me, the lessons I’ve hashed out and am currently
hashing out – it’s all I can do.
A few
months ago I wrote about how I wasn’t coming back to the US. I said, “I shall do my best to cherish each and everyday, to remember that stress never saved the world, and to laugh and cry everytime I get the chance. What my future holds I do not know. I do not even know all of what my past holds, to be honest. But this I know for sure, I am grateful for yesterday, thankful for today, and welcoming of tomorrow because discovering the adventures of surrender is the kind of life I love living.”
And after driving in silence for a few minutes down the
street in Los Angeles, all I can say is that I shall continue to do my best to
be fully here where I am today, to laugh and cry every chance I get, to let myself be overwhelmed with gratitude more regularly, and to switch
off the radio more often.
