Unnerving

Every now and then as I'm standing in the backyard, I take the opportunity to close my eyes and just listen to my surroundings. There's an occasional turkey call, or the wind rustling through the trees, but for the most part it is silent. As I'm standing there grasping for anything to listen to, I often reminisce about floating in the pool of my childhood home, with my ears submerged listening to the quiet ripples of the water.

I do this mostly because I find the quiet unnerving. I can't stand it. It's so unsettling that I purposely sit there in the quiet outside, raising my anxiety, because it intrigues me how much I dislike it.

When I close my eyes, I expect to hear cars rushing by at all hours of the day and night, people talking loudly while traveling from location to location, the buzz of the street lights and wires crisscrossing the sky, and the sounds of the television blaring from neighboring apartments or feet walking heavily across the floors above our heads.

But no...all I hear is just silence, and it imbues a feeling of isolation and loneliness...of disquiet within my own soul...and that disquiet unnerves me more than anything else.