Ever since I began to communicate, it seems that I haven’t shut up. I have recently come to realize that I was spending an inordinate amount of my time, and I mean my personal private time, on the phone. It came by accident that my phone would stop ringing, but that’s what it took to recognize that the little device we are all so attached to is possibly keeping us too attached and more detached.
Let me explain. Just a few months ago my best friend of years left town without calling me and at least say goodbye. We talked a few times a week, for a long talk. So when I called her for three weeks without any returned calls I found out that she had moved away. I was so hurt that I cut her out of my life. I didn’t call her again and didn’t want to. I just thought that we were better friends than that.
Another good friend fell in love and joined a family of three children. Sherri and I talked every single night for at least a half an hour. Now Sherri is busy with her life. We talk once a week to catch up for ten minutes or so, but we do touch base.
Then my main source, my sister Lola, who I talk to every single morning as I sip my green tea has decided to cut me out of her life. She is apparently upset because I sent the police to her home when I thought she might be in some trouble. Understandably, she didn’t care much for my actions and so now she will punish me with her absence. I talked to Lola for the last time on Saturday evening when she was crying and asking for a plane ticket home. I never heard from her again. I have tried to reach her at work and she just tells whoever answers the phone there to say that she isn’t there. So it’s over now.
It hasn’t quite been a week since my last conversation with Lola and already I can see what I was giving up. I now sip on my tea alone, with my thoughts, with my aspirations and with myself. I used to think that the daily venting that I was doing was healthy. Turns out not to be so. The ranting and raving about how wrong things could be was just an affirmation of how things would go from now on.
Several things have happened since I got off the phone. At first I felt lonely, but then I started thinking and processing things for myself. Beginning in the morning, instead of jumping out of bed instantly these days, I find myself laying there and enjoying my thoughts. I have a chat with God and process the dreams, which have increased greatly since getting off of the phone. Now I’m actually seeing how the dreams are cleaning up old business. For example last night I dreamt that I was cutting an ex girlfriend’s hair. When the haircut was done she dogged me in front of everyone for making her sweep up the hair. Now this ex, in the dream was morphing between all of my exes. As if it was all the same yet different. As I analyzed it I could see that I was processing a conversation that I had with a co-worker earlier in the day about my relationships having many similar characteristics and that I had a pattern of behavior that I tended to be attracted to.
This morning I woke up and stayed in bed for twenty minutes while I stretched my limbs, my mind and my spirit. Then I sipped my green tea on the patio without muttering a single word. I heard the peace that I am capable of having. Peace that is content. I’m grateful for everything that I have, everything that I see and everything that I get to do.