BlogAmy

I especially like that song. I'm not sure why -- I don't care for silence as much as Michael does. The tortured soul that is the "narrator" in that song doesn't seem to care for it either.

I spent the last year or so in my own little world. For most of the time, I was on IV medication that made me quite loopy. Gordon recently said it was nice to talk to real Amy as opposed to Space Amy. There were times, however, that I had things to say but couldn't. In a very, very small way, I think I may have an inkling of an idea what it must be like to be someone with an impairment that limits or eliminates speech. I started to talk, I forgot what I was talking about, someone reminded me, I got flustered, I stuttered, I stopped. Over the course of the year, it became easier to simply keep my mouth shut and sink deeper into my silent, loopy world.

I was silenced once before -- for nearly 25 years. When my best friend's sister and her boyfriends sexually molested me, I didn't speak a word about it for fear they would make good on their threats to kill my parents. Vicki had already killed one of my cats, or so she said. My only memories of abuse by their father are sketchy. Mr. Brown comes into the bathroom, he pulls four squares of toilet paper off the roll, and he tells me that it's plenty. He stays there while I use it. Mr. Brown comes into the bedroom where we are sleeping on bunkbeds. I'm on the top bunk. Ann is on the bottom. He hands me a pair of panties and tells me that I left them somewhere. He shushes Ann as he explains that he's "just playing tricks" on us. If he threatened me, I don't remember. I was 6. It ended when I was 12 because we moved away.

The only time I attempted to "tell" was when I was in 6th grade sex education. We were allowed to ask questions in secret by writing them on a piece of paper and putting them into a box. I wanted to know whether a little girl would have puppies if someone put a dog on top of her. The teacher gasped and didn't read the question aloud. All she said was that mommies only had little baby girls and little baby boys; That if someone needed to talk to her after class or after school, it was OK; And that she had answered enough questions that day.

When I finally "told," I was 30. When Mr. Brown died, I did a little victory dance and I vowed never to be silenced again. Wrong. Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again.

This time it was my health and my medications that had silenced me. I'm an ENFP and an Otter. If you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs and Gary Smalley personality assessments, you know what that I'm talking about, and you know how hard it is for an ENFP/Otter to keep silent. Over the course of 2004, my E became an I. My N was gone completely. My F was dulled. My P was blurred. The "party waiting to happen" Otter in me quit playing and became more of a dead fish. Depression sunk its sharp, ugly talons into me and wouldn't let go. Eventually, the tables turned and I wouldn't let go of the depression.

At times, I felt I was having out-of-body experiences. I had many visitors at the hospital and at home. And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more. I could see myself talking to someone, but I couldn't hear what either of us were saying. I knew we were having conversations, but I couldn't speak. People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening. When I was able to go church and lead singing, I sang, but I had no song in my heart. People writing songs that voices never shared. After awhile, most of those people became uncomfortable talking to me. No one dared disturb the sound of silence. It hurt, but I understood. I've been in their shoes and have done the exact same thing.

It's good to be "back." I may be louder than normal this time around. I'm trying to make up for lost words and lost time. And I'm definitely making up for lost songs. I sent an e-mail to Gordon telling him he may have to use the front and back of our song sheets because the songs I chose are rather wordy. No more songs than usual -- just lots of words. The song in my heart is back, and I'll sing every single word knowing that the One who is listening is hearing.

The silence is broken.

**NOTE** Cat Addendum: From the time my cat, Frieda, disappeared until I was too old to make birthday wishes, I wished Frieda would come home. I guess that was my way of keeping some hope alive that my cat was just lost and not really dead. When I told my parents what had happened to me as a child, they were mortified. It was then, at the age of 30, that I learned the truth about Frieda. She had a habit of sneaking into another neighbor's yard. They threatened to poison her or something of that nature, so my mother took her to the animal shelter and didn't tell me. They told her that if Fireda wasn't adopted in three days, she would be put to sleep. Mom felt so guilty after two days, she went back to the shelter to bring her home. She was no longer there, so she assumed she was adopted. The official story was that Frieda had run away. So there you have it. Frieda lived, and so did I :-)