Peace Written by: Elisabeth

How do you define peace?

To me, peace is when everything is silent. I don’t mean when the TV isn’t on or the dogs aren’t barking or when the birds stop singing in the morning. Peace is when everything is silent in my mind. When anxiety decides not to exist for the moment. For that moment in time, everything slows and the anxiety isn’t ripping me apart from how my hair looks to what is next in life to who I am. Identity is a strong thing and anxiety will take over when it chooses. Who I am? Do I look in the mirror and recognize myself? Who do I want to be? Is this the life I want to live? What’s my escape plan when everything hits the fan? Am I in the right relationship? Am I happy? The problem is I think happiness and identity go hand and hand. Life doesn’t give you lemons, it gives you one lemon and says try to make lemonade with one lemon. When you’re squeezing that lemon trying to get all the juice out, it doesn’t make enough lemonade for more than one person. It doesn’t make enough lemonade for more than a couple sips. If life doesn’t hand you sugar, the lemonade is bitter and no one wants to drink it. Sometimes you decide to drink the bitter lemonade but sometimes others want a taste. You decide you don’t want it so you let them try it. They decide if they want to take it or leave it. Majority would decide to not, so you are left without any sugar or lemonade. You hope life gives you more lemons so you keep going back to the tree and beg for the time to be right for you to have happiness and opportunities. Simply it’s not like that. You continue to squeeze the one lemon at a time and sometimes you collect them in hopes to make enough lemonade for you and others who want a taste. You never realize that you start feeling unsatisfied, never feel like you are fulfilling your needs or others. You start to feel bitter and unhappy but you keep going. Because when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Ironic isn’t it? When you are alone and the silence is deafening, do you take that moment of silence or is there something else taking over? Is work causing stress in your life? Is your relationship not going the way you want? Are your relationships with others too bitter where no matter how much sugar you add, it never gets better? When you alone are you happy to be alone or do you choose that lifestyle so you don’t have to commit to keep making lemonade? Simply to choose peace is never an easy decision. When you want peace, you have to disturb the peace. You isolate yourself in hopes others will disappear but you have to hurt people in the process. So my question is, does peace really exist?