The quiet

Went past the shop I always go into and simply did not go in. Not resisted. Did not occur to me. I stood outside for a moment afterwards trying to work out what had happened.

Reluctantly admitted something had changed.

Something has gone quiet and it took me weeks to be able to name it. There was a running commentary in my head about food — what was in the house, what I would have later, whether I would manage not to — and it has stopped. Thirty years of that, and it has just stopped.

The quiet is not the same as peace. It has left a space, and the space has other things in it that I had been keeping the noise on top of.

We shall see.