Word.

Remember that old Air Supply song: "I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you..."? Well, I've still got love, I'm pretty sure, but I think I might be all out of words today. I'm all out of words; I'm so lost without them.

Do you think it's possible to just use up your daily or weekly or lifetime allotment? Because what I do all day is make words. I write and I talk. Words words words. I answer e-mails, I write travel itineraries, I call people and speak to them - in German or in English - about how they might help us help people, I write scary legally binding documents, I put together agendas, I answer intelligent questions and sometimes idiotic ones, I compose worship services and the occasional sermon. Everybody wants my words, my answers, my spin on things.

But I need them now, my words. Like a parent chiding a small child to "use your words," I feel as though I could surely approach all of the problems in my life so much more efficiently if I could label them and understand them and wrap them up into neat little word sausages. If I could make a concise, powerful list of the names of these things that are rendering me speechless. The words are eluding me, and like the small child, I am resorting to inner tantrums that do little but announce my frustration and proclaim my immaturity.

I have been wisely advised to just let it happen for a while, to ride out the swells, to stop wasting my energy defying the inevitable. It's a little scary to give up even my token, exhausted bit of resistance, but really when you relax a bit, you get to save up your energy for the more important stuff. As a bonus, when you give up the futile protest you get to step back and watch for a while. Letting it happen isn't surrender, it's acceptance. And it definitely doesn't require as many words.

I miss Bjorn. He was my huge brown IKEA friend, purchased on a whim because he was just the right size for cuddling. Bjorn was incredibly patient with me, always treated me exactly the same whether I was hugging him joyfully or pounding on him in anger or staining him with my tears or gripping him in fear and frustration. He was soft and furry and benign and something to curl up around when I needed to protect my softer parts. And words didn't matter with him, of course. I could be vague or eloquent or completely unintelligible and he regarded me with the same, very slightly off-kilter beary grin. It's freeing, actually, to talk or not talk to a warm fuzzy creature who can weather all my crazy emotions impassively. Too bad he's the size of an entire suitcase and thus must await my return in my grandmother's basement. Maybe I can convince a couch cushion to stand in. I might have to sew on a furry face, though.

I know I probably rely on words too much. It's probably instinctual: words are my game face, my companions, the familiar weapon. But who says life has to be full of words all the time? Maybe the silences speak louder when you just shut up and listen.