Noise

Apparently I went from 35-85 over the last couple of years and skipped about 50 years of gradual. The world seems excruciatingly loud. 

A few ventures into stores to do holiday shopping convinced me that I was losing my mind or had stumbled into a rock concert disguised as Old Navy. 

I craved quiet and still like a pregnant woman craves gas station hot dogs. {Tell me I wasn't the only one.}

This is odd to me because I could have spent every moment of every day at the mall when I was a teenager. And during my college years, the loudness of dorm life and student center hubbub was absolutely delightful.

My most frequent utterances these days are:

Be quiet!

Turn it down!

Where is all of this noise coming from?

I can't even hear myself think.

One person talking at a time, please.

I am in serious need of a noise sabbatical. A noiseattical?

Becoming a nun sounds positively dreamy. I wear a lot of black anyway so it could work.

I'm not sure how I got to 85 so quickly and without warning but I'd like to know why and more importantly, what can I do? Perhaps it's the constant commotion and chatter and frequent bickering of young children in the house. There is indeed a lot of sound that comes along with little ones. For someone who has become more introvert-ish over the years, I suppose the constancy of it all has worn my nerves down to nothing.

There is no point to this post, except to ask if any of you feel like an 80-year-old trapped in a much younger body.

Please tell me I'm not alone in my crazy. And for those of you who homeschool, where do you go for quiet? And wherever it is, can I come with you? I only have unfinished attic space and it is cold up there.

{If you're wondering why someone with an aversion to noise would buy a guitar with an electric "whammy bar" for a 3-year-old's birthday, rest assured that I did not. That's a gift only grandparents would give.}