Silence, Darkness, Jealousy, and Kittens

Last night the Russian Blue mother cat, who's name is now Gaiylee, or alternatively Attack cat because of a joke my mom keeps making, apparently came right up to the door to rub against and play with my sandals. Isn't that adorable?

Update 11:02: I saw the kittens for the first time. They are head-exploding cute. Gaiylee let me get close enough to the nest to see them when they started mewling in response to my "kittens kittens kittens" call.

I remember in several children's books I read a description of true darkness and true silence as something that we in our suburban lives would never experience. Besides the realization that I must have read some twisted children's books, I would like to say that this simply isn't true, at least for me. As an insomniac I woke up at all hours of the night. At these times there are no cars on the road, nobody is moving, the house is not settling, and far-off motors are muted by the walls. All there is to hear is a sort of ringing in the ears, or at least that's all I can hear. Maybe I should get that checked out.
Also, I always sleep with the lights on because I am a sissy. In my old apartment no natural light entered into my room because of the way the only window faced. One night I woke up either in the middle or at the beginning of a blackout and waved my hand in front of my face to no avail, because I was literally engulfed in that darkness which is the absence of light. I always keep a flashlight close to my bed because of an inbred fear of earthquakes, so I grabbed it, called Chris, and got out of my room and into the common area. Lest I give the wrong impression, I had just woken up from a realistic dream where someone was robbing me and the less rational part of my mind was extremely convinced that someone had cut the power and was attempting to do just that. Chris was offering to drive the hundred and twenty miles down to me because he is a sweet man, but the rational part of my mind turned down the offer.

I must say that the thought of both the darkness and the silence at the same time is intimidating.

I don't understand jealous people, which is interesting because I myself used to be an extremely jealous person. The only good thing that the experience taught me is that jealousy stems in large part not from the other person's actions. but from inner insecurity. There are, of course, natural reasons to distrust human behavior as a whole, especially since nobody is perfect and everybody is liable to let others down at some point, but jealous behavior almost always pushes people farther away, defeating the purpose. Also, it must be exhausting to never be able to relax and simply trust another person, not just for the jealous one but for the other person(s) involved. Part of the joy of being in a stable relationship is that same trust, and jealousy can prevent a relationship from reaching that level of stability.