I am a particularly sensitive creature. I often have trigger moments where I become a bit too loud, a bit too excited about something or other, and I slip on my thin, smooth veneer. I panic in great anxiety; I snap and lash out in some small way at my loved ones, either passive or aggressively. Sometimes I’m so loud I can’t hear myself think.

And when I am with Nights, he corrects me immediately. In firm and gentle tones, he tells me,

“Now calm down. “

Or,

“This isn’t an argument.”

And I do. Somehow, after the shock of it fades, I put aside my bad feelings. I go to my therapies, my music and my dance. My kink. I go to my arts. I go away from the outside and into myself, to stabilize my gravity.

He always knows that I have taken it hard, and he comes to me to raise me back up;

“I’m sorry if I said that in a way that hurt you. “

It’s alright my love. I need to be hurt to be reminded sometimes. It’s the only way. And it’s only momentary really. When you come to me and let me feel that I am still lovely in your arms, when you tell me I am good, and beautiful and special to you, then I am well.

There is the question of, why is it him that affects me so positively in this way, as opposed to others against whom I have rebelled, even my Lord at times? We’re so alike I find, Nights and I, in those ways. We are so diametrically opposed to ourselves at those particular moments. Two ends of the extremes forming towards a perfect center. We change between our separate selves in a flash and back again. It’s beautiful and terrifying at once.

Over a long time, I have learned that I can keep awareness of silence with some kind of audible or physical trigger. Recently I’ve been steristripping my mouth closed for an hour a day, and that’s done wonders for me. It’s a flashback to playing with tape as a child and doing generally the same as I’m doing now.

Part of it started as an anger against myself; if I could not stay silent and keep my head then I would rather not speak at all. But the process changed me. I soon found that for a short time I can keep the peace within myself as I force peace outside myself. I can shut out the noise of me completely and feel only the world as I move through it. I imagine this is much the feeling one has when taking a ceremonial vow of silence.

The fact is, I’m ready for that part of me evolve. I’m ready for the next stage of my self to emerge. And I’m also ready to slow down. I’m ready to be a quiet little old lady in my vanilla days, and just take my life one breath at a time. And so next time I get myself worked up, next time I’m scared like that I’ll probably just hold onto them, my loves, and hope it all goes away.

I suppose for most people, balance comes naturally over time. For me, and my particularly complex wiring, it’s a bit more severe and hands on in daily managing, in this way. It isn’t that I change slowly; rather it’s difficult for me to pick up new routine.

My confidence must no longer be a matter of volume. My volume must no longer rely on my voice. There are multitudes of me between spaces, within in the silence. I need only to let them be heard.