I hate silence.
It usually causes a lot of unease, in turn causing my anxiety to skyrocket.
Usually, when I’m at home, it sounds like there is some type of popping house party taking place, but in reality, it’s just me blasting my music, trying to drown out the silence of solitude.
However, for the past couple days, I’ve been bathing in the shower of silence. I usually need some type of loud noise to help clear the negative thoughts in my head, but I think I’m slowly learning ways to clear these thoughts effectively in silence.
I still need some type of white noise to help keep extreme anxiety at bay, and to help me sleep, but the lack of bass reverberating through the floors and walls from the likes of Kanye West and The Pharacyde has been a foreign type of refreshing.
I still prefer to have the music on (like right now, I’m listening to ScHoolboy Q’s Blank Face EP), but every so often, I enjoy shutting it off. The music helps to inspire my writing, but I believe the absence of the melodies helps to get my thoughts down on paper in a clearer and more creative manner.
Music makes me SO happy. It helps to tame my fears and anxieties about life and the state of the world. I become so lost in the music, riding the waves of the melodies and harmonies, but the silence forces me to face these fears and anxieties, because at the end of the day, I can’t continue to run away from dealing with these demons. I cannot let the continue to control me in my everyday life.
Living in San Francisco for four years has affected me greatly. In the city, I was constantly surrounded by the noise of the cars and light rail passing by, incessantly honking at the pedestrians who never waited for their right of way. Music would constantly blasting from my pothead neighbors’ apartment. My roommates were around when I needed to talk to someone so I could get out of my head. When I moved to the Valley in May, the quietness of suburbia haunted me. But now, I’m learning to embrace the silence, even though I still want to move out of the Valley and back into any city, really. I still need some type of white noise to get me to sleep, but lately, the white noise is all of needed to get me through the day comfortably. It’s refreshing, and I hope to eventually be comfortable at all times in silence.
Jess B 