Hope and Silence – Behind The Scenes of Something Beautifully Monstrous

Part 1

On Hope and Silence

Yet again, it has been quite a long moment since I published From Empathy to Apathy, Hybrid of Phoenix & Banshee Given Rise, a piece I ended with the possibility that hope and silence might be my subjects of choice to move forward with.

And indeed they are!

What is apparently going to be an ongoing series for a period of time and possibly added to in the future.

A series in which hope and silence are the tour guides and main characters.

I say apparently, because while I did start Friday morning with the intention of publishing my introduction to the subjects of hope and silence, I also knew a savage editing session was in order. Having had re-evaluation come knocking during Thursday afternoon, when I realised my introduction was fast approaching an 8000 word non-academic dissertation of sorts.

Which I think is kinda far from any sort of introduction in anyone’s book really… perhaps just a tad far… maybe…!?

And thus, a series was born!

Yup, a full blown series in which hope and silence are the stars, but will also include in depth explorations of subjects that frequently intersect with hope and silence.

Subjects like personal responsibility, apologies, human imperfection, the unavoidable reality that we all make poor choices and the feat that is human survival.

Poor choices being something that some of us are far more gifted in than others…!?

Oh yeah, poor choices are like being handed a spring loaded gift that snots ya hard and fast in the face whenever it gets opened.

Especially if you are anything like me, seemingly opening that gift of poor choices much more frequently than others, with those punches snotting ya harder and fasted the more it gets opened.

Enough with the rambling already!

Allow me the immensely mischievous pleasure of introducing you to versions of hope and silence you may have never experienced or noticed in your own life. Possibly never having considered that versions of hope and silence like this might exist and play out as they do for some of us.

Versions of hope and silence you might have deliberately chosen to avoid getting as deeply involved with as I have in recent years.

Or as unconventionally involved with these subjects as I have been in recent years…!?

Nevertheless, these are my experiences with silence and hope, which I am certain fellow battlers, survivors and supporters will likely recognise in their own lives at times. Whether recognising them personally through firsthand experience, or by association as a loved one and/or supporter with a front row seat.

Some readers are likely to recognise, understand and meet with their own altered versions of the hope and silence I write about here. The versions of hope and silence that I continue to experience throughout my not yet completed life story. What is hopefully a good many wonderful stories about my life yet to come, my life yet to be written in full.

Generally speaking, I expect most readers will recognise and understand the versions of hope and silence I have experienced and write about, but in their own unique way, based on their own personal experiences in life.

Personal understanding of hope and silence being different for every one of us. Due to our own unique experiences, paths and purposes in life. With all of us navigating our own individualised journeys and circumstances in this world.

Yet frustratingly, not a single one of us being handed our own itinerary, map or instructional manual.

(The latter being my personal opinion, 50+ years of observation and my fully immersive experience as a living breathing human who was born into religion… and heavily controlled by religion… for over 40 years.)

Righto…

Cue hope and silence!

Presenting hope & silence…

Contrary to being frequently labelled an ill-speaking liar and despondent pessimist, hope and silence have featured on every page of my life story, while also being present on every stage I have stood upon in this world.

Hope bing the foundation beneath every stage I have ever stood upon in this world, a world in which there is no place for truth telling monsters like me.

While silence has consistently made use of whatever backdrops are available for me to hide myself against. Quietly camouflaging myself like a wallflower, beautifully masterful at the illusion of absence, yet standing in full view of the world.

Hope and silence also choosing to use whatever lighting provides the shadows necessary for me to make like I am invisible. When I am obligated to perform as an extra, commanded to be present upon other people’s stages to their benefit and praise worthy glory.

Quietly and invisibly fading into the backdrops of every other human I am societally forced to share my life with, as much as those I choose to willingly share my life with. Awkwardly hoping to make myself small in every human interaction I can, yet not always doing terribly well and quite often achieving the opposite.

Causing me to anxiously fade into societally sentenced isolation and prolonged reclusivity.

The latter of which is often reluctantly voluntary, to avoid the punishing societal sentencing I became accustomed to in childhood.

Many variants of hope and carefully selected forms of silence are the underpinning of everything I am

Everything I have ever done and what I defiantly hold tightly to, for my survival in a world that has given me every reason to give in, to not bother continuing my half century long fight to survive.

Award worthy cast & support…

Somewhere along the line, hope and silence became award winning supportive cast members in my story.

Hope and silence playing a variety of supportive characters, acting as unnoticed extras and even standing in as props.

In addition, they have also quietly taken on a great many tasks behind the scenes, functioning in ways I was not even aware they could. While at the same time, they would trouble shoot and manage what I could not during times of hard fought battle, uninvited crisis, illness and increased disability.

Yup, fair cop…

I am unashamedly a quirky sheila!

I can openly admit I absolutely do have a rather heavy bent toward anthropomorphism and personification in my own unique way. Assigning human qualities and whatnot to inanimate objects, while also incarnating non-human entities in my mind’s eye.

Yes, quite happy to embrace my evidential madness, no assistance or unsolicited advice at all required.

Thank you very much!

(The complexities of the human need for social connection, yet also self-protective reclusivity for some of us, that is possibly a worthwhile rabbit hole to dive down and explore within the labyrinth of logical madness by dysfunctional familial design…!?)  

Admission of quirks aside…

Hope and silence exist in every facet of my life, both starring in their own way and right.

Present in every moment of my lived experience, in my memories that refuse to lay low and fade.

Memories which refuse to be filed away, defiantly opposed to being laid to rest and forgotten.

Memories that stubbornly deny me even a semblance of the peace I have desperately desired since I was a child. The peace I have craved since  before I even knew the words desperation, peace and desire existed, much less how to understand them.

Hope…

Hope has been my everything gained, yet also my everything needed to be lost throughout a lifetime, in picking myself up and defiantly pushing myself forward.

While silence…

Silence has taught and protected me in the likeness of double edged sword, continuously cutting through human created noise.

Sometimes that sword of silence is mercilessly cruel, yet at other times tremendously nurturing and kind.

One edge terrifyingly unjust, yet ironically that edge cuts through in a way which gives rise to an abundance of personal growth.

The other edge is fiercely protective in steadfast loyalty, incredibly patient and quietly compassionate while biding life’s unforeseen storms; while fighting battles in a war I neither started or voluntarily signed up for.

(Yeah again, save ya comments about pre-incarnated “choice” and “soul contracts” for the day I call out that kinda bullshit,  calling it out for the self-soothing and battler blaming shit show of escapism from fact and reality that it is!)

Teachers, trainers & nurturers…

Hope and silence have been my lifelong providers of tough yet nurturing love.

My educators at each school and academy of life I have been mandated to attend.

My guidance when I have needed them during my darkest nights and most harrowing storms in life.

But above all, they are the greatest sources of my ever increasing fortitude, my unyielding strength, vastly underestimated resilience and my determination to survive what no human has ever cared enough to see.

No, no one…

To the contrary of wildly, and intentionally inaccurate reputation, I mean what I say.

And I say exactly what I mean, without a single word of the exaggeration or overplay I am laughable accused of employing.

When I have said “no one” and “no support” in previously published pieces, I mean no one and no support as nothing but fact!

So no, not even my nearest and dearest!

A statement my husband, adult sons and daughters-in-law will back up for themselves.

It is not until each battle in my life is over, not until all active storms have passed, that hindsight can begin to shed light on my factual reality to those closest to me. Hindsight only coming into play when the unrelenting forces behind whatever is pushing me cause my facade to crack, or more to the point, when my whole facade explosively shatters into shards and smithereens.

It is only in the final stages those closest to me have ever been permitted to see behind the facade I began creating in childhood, when I have begun the processes of my healing and recovery; involuntarily permitted by circumstance and necessity.

Just pure fact, grounded devastatingly deep in the ‘What Actually Fucking Is’ of reality!

My nearest and dearest have never been able to see or support me for exceptionally valid and rightfully excusable reasons of their own. Including my refusal to permitted anyone to enter the outer courts connected to my private inner sanctum until I am ready, due to my own valid reasons, the greatest being that I learnt at an early age that no other human is trustworthy or reliable.

The inner sanctum at the core of who I am and my soul, which like everyone, it is the one place I have the right to hold as sacred and not permit anyone to step a relational foot within.

The kind of heavily guarded inner sanctum I would imagine the vast majority of battle hardened survivors in this world hold sacred in a similar way. The only place some of us have in this world to feel safe, the only place where some of us can freely accept and love the versions of ourselves the world violently stamps down on in infancy.

Stamping the labels of…

Different, Non-Compliant, Not to Specification, Misfit, Outcast… REJECT!

Human Anomalies!

Imperfectly perfect humans the world foolishly undervalues, the kinds of magnificently flawed humans who are left with little more than hope to cling to and silence to protect them.

Digress much?

Oh come on…

Long time readers in particular, you knew there was going to be one lengthy digress in here somewhere.

Back to the matter at hand.

Factually existent human traits…

Hope and silence are facets and functions that are highly prized by humans.

Hope being understandably clung to for warmth, while silence is treasured as something rumoured to be golden…?

Quite reasonably so, given that both are vital to human survival.

But hope and silence are incredibly more complex than we realise, far more complex than is permitted to be acknowledged and openly spoken about. Because hope and silence, as human traits, facets and functions, they naturally walk the same messy middle grounds that we do.

They are as imperfectly perfect as each human they inhabit.

Vital traits, facets and functions that no human can survive without.

As magnificently flawed in their function and capabilities as each human fated to journeying through a world that has no concern for individual beings or unique human purpose.

Like every organic thing in this world, light and dark are necessities within the nature of hope and silence.

Light and dark being integral to hope and silence in human form and function.

Hope especially, being guided by the light, yet requiring darkness all the same.

Hope being illuminated in the darkness and tested within the dapple in betweens of what facts might make themselves available. Facts that require being weighed up and balanced out by sound reason and common sense. Facts that require light to judged them by the inescapable laws of cause and effect.

Yeah, hope and silence…!?

Hope is the lens of survival through which I observe, experience and navigate the world passing me by.

Silence is what braces my protective facades and guides me safely within the comforting cover of my own internal darkness.

As a creative type, both hope and silence play out as personifications in my mind’s eye.

Hope in particular having taken on various human forms.

Hope is certifiably complex…

Oh look, I cannot deny the glaringly obvious here.

Yeah, nah…

Not that I am certifiably starkers, that is old news and already established as fact.

I mean the other glaringly obvious point that is about to come screaming around the corner at you, like an evil clown chasing after its over caffeinated and clearly impish pet monkey, which somehow broke lose.

That point is this… 

Hope is clearly an incarnation in my mind’s eye with a multiple personality disorder…!?

From the embodiment of a powerfully well built arch angel riding around Fairyland on a rainbow farting unicorn, to a seductively lovable rouge toying with my emotions in the dapple middle grounds of life’s foreboding in betweens.

And ya know sometimes…

Just sometimes, hope can be a right sadistic bastard who takes an enormity of pleasure from seeing me stumble while wandering the darkest regions of my factual reality with me.

The thing is this…

That final incarnation of hope in my mind’s eye, he knows the realms of factual reality are my native homelands and he also knows how to play them deceptively well to my advantage. That is, once he has had his fill of mind fucking pleasure at the expense of my tortured soul and further loss of sanity.

My native homelands, they are the place from which I harvest fact from what is undeniably real.

The place I personally harvest ingredients from and carefully source whatever else I need to create my potent blends of harden the fuck up and get your screwed up self straightened out. The ingredients that are vitally necessary in the creation of my intensely bittersweet shots, specially crafted for uplifting weary travellers of darkened realms with wickedly good laughter.

The deliciously wicked brands of humour that stir the spirit, provide warmth where cold shoulders grow as an invasive species, and can give comfort to any wrongfully exiled soul; sentenced to wander in the wilderness.

You see…

Silence and hope…!?

Who they are and what they represent when acknowledged in the fullness of what they are capable of providing outside convenience and comfort, that is often so terrifying it is understandably avoided at great expense.

At great expense to the most defenceless, vulnerable and broken members of society!

Hope & silence, so beautifully monstrous…

Sometimes hope and silence are beneficial, uplifting and protective bearers of light.

Sometimes hope and silence wreak havoc as a darkness more frightful than any night.

Yet frequently, humans choose the complex in betweens to hide their truth out of sight.

Yet frequently, humans choose to muddy true colours ‘til wrong is made fraud’s right.

Secrets hidden in the dappled and shadowy in betweens of human blessing and blight.

Secrets hidden in the blended and murky human waters as offerings to vampiric rite.

Yet illuminated in darkness, they are more curiously pleasing than when forever bright.

Yet illuminated in darkness, they are more comforting when exposing what gives fright.

They rise to end the injustice of ignorance upholding reins held maliciously tight.

They rise to strip the tarnished armour outgrown by humans fated to endless fight.

The beautifully monstrous they set free from patching facades to hide survivor’s plight.

I stand without shame…

Beautifully monstrous!

Stunningly monstrous, yet free without glittery hopes weighing down my literary flight.

Starkly grotesque, yet free to bare my hideous scars without shame laying claim to spite.

My hopes and broken silence, devastatingly splendid amid the darkness I choose over light.

Hopes tested by time…

Quietly I have clung to the hopes that I could one day break my silence, the kind of hope that feels more like a wish, yet after half a century that hope has proven itself genuine.

Quietly held hopes of spilling true colours.

Hopes of setting fact free to bleed unapologetically from maliciously constructed fiction.

A breaking of silence that may have already begun in part.

But this…

This where my breaking of silence really starts.

With no other human’s permission being requested, or at all required!

With no other human’s opinion being necessary, much less ever desired!

No more hope filled apologies coming from this people pleaser now retired!

No more hope filled apologies coming from this dark dweller newly inspired!

Oh whoops, my mistake…

I actually do have a large apologetic debt that is excessively overdue.

A lengthy list of apologies that are owed to my readers, my entire family, members of the Christianity I was born into and various other facets of society. Apologies that are undeniably mine to own, with the time having come for me to make good on my debt.

Additionally, like vast numbers of men and women who silently survive what no one else sees, I have a number of apologies to make to myself too.

The subject of apologies however, that will have to wait to become my next published piece.

Starting with an outlaying of confessions, my wrongfully held beliefs in many cases.

While doing so, I will be making corrections as necessary regarding my own behaviour and wrongful beliefs. Offering a bloody good demonstration in how apologies actually require acknowledgement of wrongdoing and corrective action as proof of debt paid.

Including proof of debt paid for those of us who owe ourself a great deal of apologies.

Such as learning how to acknowledge when self-flagellating criticism becomes a hindrance, making due apologies to one’s self and moving forward with a plan that is much kinder, much less punishing from perspectives that can wait for another day.

Anyway…

It is my greatest hope you found something of benefit and worth throughout that ramble.

And as always, thank you wholeheartedly for taking the time to creatively explore factual reality with me.