Shhhhhhhh

I have a problem:  I don’t want to speak.

I am not kidding.  I don’t want to converse.  I don’t want to make comments out loud.  I don’t want to give orders.  I don’t want to utter the most insignificant of utterances.  I don’t want to part my lips, except to shove food in my mouth...now, for that, I will open nice and wide...shove a whole piece of devil’s food cake right into my silence.

But, truly, I don’t want to talk.

And, I am analyzing – with concern - this phase I have entered.  Why am I out of words?

I have felt this growing; it started small – I would say less.  It developed into my sharing only select and necessary comments, things like, “Move.”  And now, we are at the point, where I stand by, tight-lipped, and I watch brawls. 

In my head, I am thinking, “No.  Stop.” 

But, I am not saying anything. 

I am simultaneously thinking about cake.

Obviously, I am nearly nuts. 

I almost knew this would happen eventually.  I mean, you can only go around with an environmentally-induced, transitory type of Parental-Tourette Syndrome for so long, shouting out half sentences and stray words; having four conversations at once – a few of them with yourself; dashing from room to room shrieking, “Ahhhhhh,” and “Wuhhhhhh?”

And, let us not forget the abrupt delayed reactions: 

I can be at the checkout line, and I will yell out, “Darn it.” 

That “darn it” is related to a situation that occurred five hours prior to my shopping for cat food – it just re-emerged in my aching brain, unsolicited, and the exclamation has nothing to do with the current checkout experience, though the current checkout experience is now muddied and stalled, with all eyes planted on me and my wild “darn it,”

which is then followed up by an intentional, “Oh crap!” because I realize that I am shouting out random expletives again,

which leads, of course, to a whole windstorm of expletives...all the way to the car, during which time, I forget I have children with me, children who are playing Frogger in the parking lot, surviving only thanks to the extreme intervention on the part of Guardian Angels, who are about to put in paperwork for reassignment.

More expletives. 

It is raining expletives.

Like I said, you can only go around like that for so long, before you will make a decision – conscious or not – to jump in and help yourself...

by shutting up altogether.

Thas right.  Shut up.  I said it...the most horrible of mommy words:  SHUT UP.  You have never said that.  Well, I am saying it now, sister:  SHUT UP; SHUT UP...SHU SHU SHUTTY SHUT - SHUT THE HECK UP!

I just collapsed on the floor.

So, like I said – oops, not said – like I thought, 

I am kinda going through something.  Perhaps it is just a short-lived “loss for words.”  Or, perhaps I have a form of shock. 

Dunno.

Sh.