Crossroads

It’s an internal crossroads of sorts.

It wasn’t deliberate; an unintentional silencing attributed largely to the deepest, purest love of mankind, motherhood. Based on tending to the immediate more pressing needs of the smallest dependents it slipped away, unnoticed for the most part.  Suddenly though, a decade later, stumbled upon even,there is a break from the deepest woods, a light shines through and a clearing just before her.

In the momentary silence, the slight confusion even,  her voice puts forward.

Quietly at first, she barely recognizes it, testing the waters of her soul to see, will it hold? And then louder still in the silence of rhythmic, monotonous dish washing and in the quiet of a groaning vacuum cleaner, in the breathing space between errands, in the beginning stages of a complete night’s sleep, she hears it again and she weeps for she did not know what she lost.

How did this happen, this unintentional silencing? Certainly it wasn’t purposeful, certainly she wasn’t aware it was happening, did  the others around her notice how in a moment of time, the voice became quiet as the babies, the business, the sleeplessness, the immediateness, the basic survival became loudest.  It wasn’t wrong. It was beautiful actually.  There is a depth there now, a depth that comes from dying to self for another, a love so deep it’s indescribable, but now, was she  lonely to hear her soul speak again?

Her voice cautiously puts forward.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t said words it’s that her soul had struggled to speak. It’s in the little things at first. The battle over self: it matters, it doesn’t, it shouldn’t, it does.  It is there, in the little things that her soul rediscovers her voice and she almost dares to say she likes it, the sound of it, HER voice.  It’s tonality is strange to the inner ear. There’s a nervousness but a familiarity; like a first coffee with an old friend to strike up a renewed friendship. There’s a vulnerability, an awkwardness, a hesitancy and perhaps even an excitement.

It’s a luxury of the richest souls, she recognizes that, to hear this voice.  To stand at this crossroads and decide if the realm of the new unknown  is worth the risk of crossing the tracks. Perhaps  though, perhaps it is time to speak again.