SILENCE IS MY FRIEND

SILENCE is my friend… I’m comfortable with it. It energizes me. And I enjoy it. . It calms me when I’m angry. It heals me when I’m tired. It grounds me when pray. I desperately long for it whenever I’m overwhelmed with life’s busy-ness. And whenever we meet, it never fails to amaze me. Posible ra jud diay mu-storya kas-a in a day or none at all.

 

Years ago, my best friend broke up with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend cheated on her and got someone else pregnant. Uy! Chismis! She called crying and pouring her heart out, and so the next day, I went to her boarding house. And we spent the whole day in silence. Well, there’s the sound of her crying from time to time but I didn’t say a thing. I can’t say “It’s okay, because obviously it’s not!” and there are no words I could say that could make her feel better during that time. I’m not qualified to give her any relationship advice. Years later, she got married to another guy. I visited their home and she told me how she appreciated that day we spent in Silence. She was just thankful that even when we didn’t say a thing, she was comforted. “uuh” That taught me that Silence can also be as powerful as words.

 

But wait there’s more, that’s not the only thing I learned about Silence. Joining Toastmasters, I also learned how silence or pauses help in delivering speeches. For someone like who gets nervous whenever I face a crowd, I tend to rush everything. I would start confident kunuhay but in the middle of the speech, I’m already thinking “kanus-a pa man ko mahuman uy!” and that pushes me to rush my speech and when I’m done, I’d sit there back in my seat and gihangak na ko. And so, as I listened to speakers and evaluators here, and read through our pathways, Silence taught me how to breathe. That it’s okay to take pauses between talks. It’s okay to pause and let the audience react. And lastly, it’s fine to take pauses to organize forgotten lines.

It's going to be hard. To incorporate silence in a setting that requires one to make a sound but reality is, words are best heard in silence.

SILENCE is indeed my friend and I look forward to more lessons it would teach me in the future. Hopefully, except Silent treatment.