The Tipping Point

"It's like you're waiting for some thunderous boom. Do you think maybe you should wait for the silence?"

I let her words soak in a bit before responding.

Silence. Funny thing that. You mean, the nothing?

The emptiness?

Is that where I should be looking? The long periods of uninterrupted, dull afternoons, with the light casting long shadows over couch cushions and dusty floors? The early morning stir, with no phones dinging and coffee still whole bean and tucked in shadows?

After late nights of long questions, I should be searching for that drawn out gaping hole that swallows up my whispers?

That wordless, thick air that hangs over my breath, supporting simple pleadings slipping out between drops of tears.

This silence.

I have started a list. Of things I just absolutely don't know what to do about. The only thing I know to do with them is to put them on a list. It started with two. Then grew to four.

Now it's somewhere around eight items that are running toward me without hint of delay.

That's when I hit the tipping point. That moment when I suddenly realize that life is barreling down the hillside like a herd of wild horses, thundering at me to keep pace.  

If I'm not careful, if I'm not deliberate, my own compass begins to spin, wildly searching for North. For the center. For home. I can't capture in words this nauseating struggle to stay just balanced enough before one side of my life just collapses into the category of "everything I can't handle."

So the phone call that says, "You might need to stop shaking trees and banging pans. Maybe it's time to be quiet."

Someone should really consider writing a manual on adulthood. Or being a human being. 

That would be really nice.