alone

As I sit here beginning this blog post, it is Sunday at noon.  And I have been alone for almost three hours.  And during those three hours, I have dowloaded some new music, had a long, satisfying run (a personal best!), and done laundry and facebooked and taken a gloriously (and likely also highly irresponsibly) long shower.  And now I am sitting here.  In the purple sundress I bought last year but can't wear in public because I discovered it was see-through.  Sipping my second coffee.  Fingers on the keyboard.  And listening.

I can hear things.  I can hear birds outside my window.  I can hear the padding of cat paws on the kitchen tiles.  The neighbours lawnmower.  I can hear the ticka-ticka-ticka of the keys as I type.  I can hear my own breathing.  A slight rustle of breeze.  Someone's windchimes.  The sound of swallowing coffee as I pause to think.  The clock ticking.  I can hear all these things, and it occurs to me how much I don't hear in the regular swing of my life, when cacophony and chaos (however adorable) reign. 

Sometimes I forgot the impact in my life of being an introvert.  Not in the social sense - I'm highly aware that I'm that girl that always really wants to meet new people and make new connections but gets hopelessly tongue-tied and self-conscious when the opportunity arises - I mean in my day-to-day life as a parent.  I am an introvert with two really, really, extremely active, passionate and holy-fucking-LOUD kidlets.  For 10-13 hours a day, every day, my home is filled with activity.  Noise.  Motion.  A constant supply of kinetic energy.  For the most part, I am glad of this.  I have vibrant and wildly energetic smalls who live with a whole lotta gusto.  Two different, but very big personalities (well, three if you count mine ;).  Most days, their verve feels like a win.  

BUT - there is not a lot of room in my life to nurse the introvert in me.  Sometimes, the volume and movement seems so normal, so natural, so unavoidable, that I forget exactly how much I depend on quiet and stillness and space for introspection to come back to myself, to regroup.  And how rare a bird such quiet and stillness and space is.

So, for as much time as I have today, I will luxuriate in this aloneness, in the hopes that I find myself somewhat reenergized to keep up with these amazing wild things that make my world so full of noise... and life.