I’ve been searching, longing, seeking a life of intention.
Word art by Michelle Pendergrass
It’s elusive.
Muddled in the day-to-day craziness.
Our mornings begin as low crescendo and within seconds there’s a bustle of noise. Laughter, tears, shouts and stomps. It echoes through the halls of our home, bouncing off the walls just like the two boys who live here.
“Hurry up,” I yell up the stairs. The six year old is still snuggled in the warm confines of his striped comforter and Star Wars sheets.
The minutes tick by on a clock that is already fast-forwarded an hour due to the masochistic time change.
I bustle about the kitchen, slamming cabinets, clattering spoons into cereal bowls and sloshing milk into glasses. As I push the fridge door with my elbow it closes with a rattle threatening to dislodge all its contents.
“Your oatmeal is ready,” I yell up again.
“Your meal ready,” mimics a little redhead standing next to me, his voice tripled in decibels.
He squeals with laughter at his “joke”.
The announcement of food awakens my sleeping beauty and he bounds down the stairs, the house shaking in his wake. His little redheaded shadow follows stomping his feet intentionally along the floor toward the kitchen table.
Their chairs scratch along the wood floor and the moment their pajama-clad bums hit the chair their little voices resound throughout the house. The redhead “freezes” his brother with his obvious freeze-ray and the oldest begs to be thawed from his imaginary ice prison.
Soon, it’s time to leave and upon this realization I’m met with ear piercing screams, and large crocodile tears.
We make our way to preschool where the crescendo is reminiescent of squeals from teenage girls at boy band concert.
As farewell cries and screams for mommy serenade me all the way to the exit, I long for silence.
I’ve only been awake for three hours and my ears are ringing the noise of life too loud and too intense.
I sit in the car and breathe.
For the first five minutes of my 15-minute trip, I embrace the silence. Hold it close and let it envelope me. But then…the silence becomes louder than Little Red’s squeals.
I felt as though I would crawl out of my skin. I missed the laughter, tears, shouts and stomps
It made me feel alive.
There’s no life in the silence.
I smile …
Well it’s more of smirk really…
A “hmmm, this is ironic” type of smirk.
I finally found it.
My life with intention isn’t hidden by the noise.
The noise IS my life with intention.
It’s why I’m here.
Why I write
Why I live my life out loud.
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