Quiet.

This afternoon I find myself sitting in a coffee shop, sipping a spicy chai tea and feeling warm and comfortable after a steaming cup of delicious bean chili. It's quiet in here. Soft lights and comfy couches. Quiet conversations about French literature between friends, a family sitting and enjoying each others company and the early evening by the fireplace. Individuals reading, writing, or just sitting and being.

It is rare that I force myself to intentionally come to a place simply to be alone. To be quiet.

And I am realizing now how important that is for me. Especially now, as a mom to the most active and intelligent toddler on the planet (ok, slightly biased, but I have no problem burning calories with all the running around I do everyday to keep up with her!), and with a baby who is only about 3 months away from joining our family in person.

The real reason I am at this coffee shop right now is because I completely lost it today with said active toddler (who can't keep her hands out of a certain animal's water bowl), and then continued to project at my husband (who certainly doesn't deserve an unkind word) and even at the dog we are currently caring for (who can't keep his sniffing nose out of my grocery bags!). Ten minutes later I found myself crying in the laundry room, folding the laundry and trying to not smear my runny mascara on the clean towels.

So after some apologies and hug, my husband (who is very understanding of certain crazy pregnancy hormones) took Lexi to his friend's apartment to spend the afternoon and ordered me to either go to a coffee shop or go buy shoes. Strangely enough, I chose the former. (I'll take him up on the shoe offer later.)

And so here I sit. Relaxed and finding quiet.

I don't have a chaotic life. In fact I work hard to keep my schedule relatively open and activity free. But I am realizing that even if I am not going somewhere, or doing something significant, I am always trying to be busy doing something. Anything. Because there is always something to be done.

So maybe in this new year I will try to find the quiet more. Create it, if that's what it takes. Because God can be rather difficult to hear if there is constant noise everywhere.

And I am a firm believer that every soul needs quiet in order to thrive in the noise.