Silent Soul

There is this box. Its purpose is simple - to keep us inside. It is made up of rules, parameters to follow to get a stamp of approval from others. It is gifted to us from our caregivers on the day we take our first breath, and upheld by everything that touches our lives.

The Box is full of rules. It instills the Correct Way to Live. It teaches adolescents and chains adults. It ties us all up in perfect bows, making us palatable for the world around us. The Correct Way to Live gives you insight on how to make the right decisions in your life. There is one way to live, and this provides a checklist to achieve it.

The day you’re born, they set you oh-so-carefully down into The Box. They smile at you, tell you that you’re perfect the way you are. Tell you how great life is going to be, how beautiful it will become.

You begin to grow. They’re so excited! How beautiful you’re becoming! How big and strong! What amazing things are you going to do with this world!

Then, you hit a side of The Box for the first time. You get a little too excited one day, a little too curious. Your first experience learning the parameters of The Box. You are chastised.

Oh, silly baby! You are getting a little too big for your britches. Remember, THIS is how we live!

You listen and learn - and stay still.

But you’re just a baby, you are so excited to be alive! To experience everything! You hit another side.

My goodness! Are you listening? THIS is how we live, not that way. Don’t forget again!

Then, The Box is too small. It happens fast. Soon, you’re pressing on all four walls.

I’m uncomfortable, I don’t fit in here.

But, you must! There is no other way to live than inside this box. Learn to conform, or else.

You learn there is only one way to survive The Box - silence. You silence your wants and needs for the comfortability of those around you. Make yourself small, polite, and you’ll move through the world just fine.

Since birth, she has made the right decisions. She listened to her authority figures, read the textbooks and watched the videos.

Through the teachings and the preachings, she learned of the Correct Way to Live. Follow the checklist, do what is asked of you, and you’ll find happiness, safety, and security. You’ll never have to fight another day in your life.

She was praised for her silence, awarded for her lack of emotion, applauded for her self-control.

You are such a good kid! You never cause any problems. So easy to please.

But. she wasn’t. She was the most feeling, most loving, most creative. Her soul was as large as the sky, and needed as much to breathe. It needed space to touch others, to spread its feelers. It was hungry, it needed to experience.

But she boxed it. Taking up space was not a lesson of The Box - quite the opposite. Whatever she was meant for, there is no need to know. She quieted her soul with the logistics of her decisions and got back to work.

She did exactly what they asked. And it worked. Her caregivers were proud, she was a strong, independent woman who had set herself up so well, she could do whatever she wanted.

She was winning the game. But how would someone notice the first fissures in their soul when they were doing so well impressing everyone else?

She stumbled. Entering adulthood, the increased autonomy weakens the hold of The Box. Her soul now began to crack. With each personal decision of her future, she buckled down on The Correct Way to Live, hoping to ignore the growing doubt fluttering around her chest.

With each tightening of the straps, the cracks grew. They splintered; they spread. Her soul was beginning to bulge underneath the pressure. She was not meant to be so tightly bound, not meant to fit in the perfection of The Box.

That’s when her soul began to weep, just a little. A few gasps, a handful of protests. With each one, she silenced it with a glance. With a self-hating phrase, a head shake, a clench of the fist.

What you want has nothing to do with us. What you want will get us nowhere. Life is hard work and discipline, if you can’t conform then be quiet.

So, it did. Every emotion she felt was buried. Her soul was silenced.

Until she couldn’t hide behind the road laid out for her. She entered the Real World ©, and it was nothing that was promised.

The pressure of The Box was pronounced, while the amount of people inside were lessened. People were lying, preaching to follow The Box while they weren’t. Everything that she had been taught was wrong - her foundation had dissolved from underneath her.

She was broken, while her soul rejoiced.

See? You don’t have to ignore me, we can be one! You can do what you love.

She scoffed. There was no way The Box was wrong, she based every decision off it! Without it, she had no idea what direction to go. It was best to keep moving with what she knew.

But it got worse. Closed door after closed door. She was hitting walls. She was so good at ignoring her needs, someone could have placed the world on her shoulders, and she would have carried its weight with ease.

Each closed door. Each move. Each goodbye. According to The Box, all seen as failures.

She kept pushing, and her body began to fail. Her soul was screaming. It was in pain, being blatantly ignored every second of the day.

She was at her end. Something was wrong with her.

So, one night, she sat down with her dusty journal. Opened it to the next empty page, the last entry dated from over a year ago, and began to write.

They lied.

They lied to me. The Box isn’t real.

Now, here I am. A shell of what was once me. I try to listen to my soul, but I can barely hear her. Delivered on a voice raspy with unuse, all I gathered was her end is near - unless she is given time to breathe.

I am at a crossroads. Soon, any decision will seal my fate. It is unknown which it will be, I have no idea who I am or what direction to go.

My soul is dying, that I do know. Be brave and remove her gag, or lose her forever to conformity.