Six months ago

Just over six months since I wrote this, describing how my experiences teaching at a performing arts high school left me emotional and physically drained. I walked out of that building, got into Monster, and turned off the radio, and didn't turn it on again until we purchased Agnes in December.

I would sit at home, stare vacantly, and listen to the sound of silence. No screaming guitar plugged into the loudest amplifier in the universe in the hall, no pattering of feet as ballet dancers step down the hall, no monologues told at the top of voices, no voices singing a Led Zeppelin song accompanied only by a tambourine. No one screamed my name, no annoying pinging when yet another unanswerable email arrived in my inbox, just silence.

I've only recently started listening to music again, to adding noise to my life.

Saturday night we went to a belated holiday party at the local bike shop where my husband works and amid the music pumping through the sound system, the balloons popping, the babies screaming, drunk bike mechanics screaming in agony as they wiped out during tricycle races, and dogs barking, I laughed and danced and never even once questioned the volume.

This afternoon, as I put the finishing touches on my syllabus I listened to my Pandora station and enjoyed every second of it.

Let the music back in.