LJ Idol Prompt 11 — Haver

[flipflop_diva]

I have this memory. This moment in time. So picture perfect I can see even the tiny details. I’m fourteen years old, celebrating my birthday with seven of my best friends. We’re downstairs in the basement of our house in California. The basement that was once cold cement and full of boxes that no one had looked at in years but was now carpeted and painted and insulated and painstakingly fixed up by my dad to give my sister and me a place to go with our friends so we weren’t bothering the rest of the household.

So the eight of us are downstairs, sitting bunched up against each other. Games are scattered across the floor. We have the Ouija board out now; we’ve already gone through Sorry! and Monopoly and Payday. But no one is paying attention to that at the moment. Instead, everyone is talking and talking and talking, conversations about everything and nothing swirling all around, mixed with laughs and shouts and even louder voices to be heard over the din.

I’m right in the mix of the whole thing, talking and listening and loving every second of this moment with friends. Happy and content in the surround sound of chatter. Loving the feeling of noise everywhere.

And there was always noise everywhere back then. The radio blaring while I did my homework. The television on while I read a book. My mom chatting on the phone with a friend while I worked out calculus problems. My sister going on and on about nothing while I nodded along and kept practicing my colorguard routine.

But somewhere, over the years, that’s changed. Somewhere, over the years, noise has become almost too much. Become almost too overwhelming.

Not all the time and not all the noise. Not at parties or football games. Not at crowded restaurants or having drinks with friends. Not at concerts and kid play places. Not when I can focus on just one thing.

But when I need to focus on something else, it has changed. Now I need quiet to do my work. The iHeart Radio app on my phone gets shut off as soon as I open my email. Now someone talking in the background means I have to re-read the same sentence in my book five times, just to make sure I really understand the entire thing correctly. Now the kids screaming while I try to write an email threatens to overwhelm my senses. Now I have to try really hard not to yell, “Just be quiet!” at the kids when they are just being kids — playing and laughing and having fun. Because it’s not fair to them to make them live like they reside in a library. But sometimes they are just. So. Loud.

But once upon a time I was too. And I remember that time perfectly.

Sometimes I try to remember when it changed. When noise first became something I needed to turn off. Was it after college when I got my own apartment like a real adult and I no longer lived next door to people who blared the radio night and day? Was it when I got a job where I could work from home and I stopped listening to people chatting all day every day around me? Or was it later? Was it after I got pregnant with Ellie? Was it a side-effect that showed up along with the weird food aversions and the heartburn and just never went away?

Sometimes I think maybe I know, but I don’t like to think too hard about it. Because if I do, I’ll have to think a little harder about the other things too that have changed, that have made life slightly harder. The perfectionistic qualities that have gotten more intense, like the ones where clothes need to be folded just so or I need to do it all again. The obsessions that have gotten stronger, like the ones where I need to count to make sure we haven’t lost any forks or spoons since the last time we ran the dishwasher. The procrastination tendencies that seem to be stronger than they used to be, as if they have a life of their own.

I’ve suspected for a long time now that I have a mild case of OCD, but that suspicion has grown in recent years. It’s just never been something that I’ve felt I’ve needed to truly deal with because it hasn’t caused problems in everyday life. Except maybe it has caused problems but in ways I haven’t realized. Or maybe it’s not even OCD but something else entirely.

I think again on that memory, the one from my fourteenth birthday party. Why that moment in time is the one I remember — because it really is just that one moment I remember so clearly. I can’t recall anything about what happened before or after that moment. What we ate for dinner, what kind of cake my mom made, what movie we watched before bed, what presents I opened, whether my little sister came down to bother us even when my parents told her not to. Nothing. Just that moment, with all the noise and being right in the middle of it, just rambling along.

Maybe because I felt free. Maybe because I felt alive. Maybe because I just felt happy.

It’s hard to say. But all I know is I remember it, and sometimes — sometimes when things get to be too much, too loud, too intense, too overwhelming — I wish I could go back to that time when it wasn’t that way, and it was just fun.






Non-Fiction.



This was written for therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read the other amazing entries. You can find them here. Voting should be up Friday!

Comments

[erulissedances]

I think we all have times when we wish we were back in a happy memory.

- Erulisse (one L)

[muchtooarrogant]

Ha, you fooled me, when you started telling this story, I was "certain" it would have something to do with the Ouija board! LOL

Your dad had such a great idea. It's always better for everyone concerned if the kids have a place to go crazy, raise hell and make noise. (grin)

I couldn't agree with you more about needing quiet to work effectively, and the same goes for writing. I've started using noise cancelling headphones to "cancel" everyone out, and it's been a pretty great solution.

Dan

[chasing_silver]

I've heard that motherhood makes people intolerant to excess noise, and I really do believe it's true! This entry was very poignant.

[mollywheezy]

My parents' house had a finished basement too where I had birthday parties. What a great memory! :)

[murielle]

I love how you started with the memory of your 14th birthday and that moment when you felt great and then you took us back to it. ❤❤❤

[swirlsofpurple]

This is so relatable. It's strange the ways sometimes background noise isn't a problem and sometimes it means I can't focus at all.

Thank you for sharing.

[fausts_dream]

This meditation on how we change as we age is powerful, I enjoy it. I'm a background noise person but I've gotten to wear more and more I appreciate silence. Of course I live with eight dudes in a sober house so, the opportunity to enjoy that at a reasonable hour is rare.

[inkstainedfingertips]

This piece is so incredibly relatable to me. The noise of life is oftentimes too much to deal with, and I crave solitude. Although, when I work, I do need music. But like you, I sometimes wish I could travel back to a time when that noise was fun. This piece is really well written and, like I said, very relatable. Well done.

[halfshellvenus]

I've known these feelings--a combination of introversion, and then later ADHD for me. With too much noise and hubbub, sometimes I just can't think, you know? And the other thing that brings it on is low blood sugar.

You're doing well if you're able to keep from venting that frustration at your kids, and are letting them just BE kids. Just so long as they aren't shrieking That Note-- that has to be nipped in the bud!

[adoptedwriter]

I can totally relate to this. I am more noise tolerant than my Hub, bur still...I want the noise to be MY CHOICE of noise, not someone else's.

[rayaso]

This was a fascinating meditation on noise. I loved "surround sound of chatter." The movement in the story toward possible OCD was very interesting. I admire a dad who turns a basement into a kids' space.

[alycewilson]

I think your ideas about why it changed are legitimate. Part of it probably has to do with the fact that you're now able to control your own space and decide how much sound you have bombarding you. It's great that your family is supportive and complies. In our household, there can be a good deal of sound from just three of us, but whenever anyone needs quiet (like when I'm writing a poem, or when my son is recording sound for an animation) we all go on silent running for a while.