Listening To Silence

I don’t exactly know what my plans were for writing today. I’m in that weird creative space where I have a lot going on in my mind, but no time or space to process everything. If you’ve ever suffered through something similar, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t? Imagine a room full of children. Now, imagine this room full of children hopped up on every imaginable candy there is in the known universe. And, in this room, there are lots and lots of colorful toys that make buzzing and clanking and grinding and whirring noises. Then, imagine this room full of hopped up, sugar-induced children with all their toys in this room… screaming. Really loudly. In unison.

So when you see those Behind The Music specials about the creative types and musical geniuses taking huge substance nosedives into career suicides, and wondering why someone with all that talent and money would do something so stupid as taking a Speedball with Hennessey mix then wake up the next morning dead in their own vomit, find comfort in knowing they were just trying to make all those screaming children SHUT. UP!

Usually, when I find myself in fits of creative duress such as this, I find a dark, quiet place and lay down for a few minutes hours until the screaming stops, or the children are civilly reading their Dr. Seuss books. Oft times, I end up sleeping. The sleeping is nice. The sleeping is actually an old past time of mine. Some people knit. Some people play Pinnacle. I sleep. Things tend to make more sense when my R.E.M. is kicked up a few notches.

But when you’re sitting at an office desk, confined to a chair and the walls of a building you’re expected to, oh, I don’t know, do work in, it is frowned upon to sleep. Some people can be real tyrannical about the whole “come to work to work” thing. And I totally get that. My brain? Not so much. So me and the cerebellum have to reach some middle ground of compromise. Since sleeping isn’t an option, we try surfing. Not in water (although it would be a riot to see me wipe out in the middle of the cesspool we call Lake Erie), but in the 2.0 era. What gems you find when you aren’t really looking.

I’ve mentioned my past brushes with death. From time to time, I like to showcase places that not only give a forum for those dancing around their own thoughts of suicide, but offer ways to help. Here are two that really spoke to me (and this is only what I’ve found in a short burst of time; trust me, I do more damage given more hours in a day):

To Write Love on Her Arms

“…A non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.”

Violence UnSilenced

This blog was created with the sole intention of shedding light on the epidemics of domestic violence and sexual assault by giving their survivors a voice.

Whoo-boy. In the wake of the Chris Brown-Rihanna debacle, this couldn’t be more timely.

Enjoy the link love. (Special thanks to Sarcastic Mom for displaying both on her site, thus bringing them to my attention.)