Last week I was talking with a mom about how making a choice can be exhausting (and the real Life that goes on behind it). She was having difficulty understanding why her son couldn’t pick what he wanted in his sandwich. She was clueless and looking to understand the situation.
It made perfect sense to me. He wasn’t making a big deal out of it. He was tangled in some rapid and overwhelming inner motions.
To make my point I described how sometimes my mind can race and bug on just one question. It happened just a few days ago, when a friend sent me a harmless text “Quelle couleur, le hibou autour du cou ?” She was kniting an owl to make a neclace, and asking me what colour I wanted it to be. In the space of a moment I froze.
This is what was happening inside. Blue or green? or Indigo or golden or white or black. And then it depends on the material, if it’s thread or beads, their texture, their light. What size will it be? If I wear it with my blue dress it could be a golden color, but not if I wear it with my V neck green t-shirt. And what about the size? Will it be very close to the neck, or lower and loose, can we mix 2 colours, and what about the eyes… And it went on.
I froze to the avalanche of thoughts. I felt exhausted, powerless. Out of connection. Too much to handle. Not knowing how to sort it out. Or keep up to speed with all the ideas. I ignored the text and didn’t answer. While holding inside an unconfortable sense of indigestion.
As I was blurting out loud the inner talk at the pace it had ran inside, I saw the mom’s pair of eyes widen in astonishment. Somehow I know she got it. She had peeked at the inner realms and wouldn’t prepare the sandwich the same way again.
SO really, when someone goes silent, it might be that their mind is going wild. It’s not that they don’t know what to pick for a sandwich.