Looking back on everything I’ve shared so far…
my comments and views seem so…simplified. I could be wrong. I could have hit the nail on the head. Either way life is complicated. People are complicated.
As humans we walk around feeling and then processing those feelings until we either explode or discard them all together. Until the next day when those feelings come back, and we realize that they never left. We put them in the trash and then forget to empty the trash; literally or figuratively. We look at our garbage and say hmmm what did I put in there? Maybe I could still use it, maybe I might need it in the future.
And through all that processing, we rarely share what we are feeling with the person who should hear it. We talk to our friends, to family, or we go to websites devoted to answering your questions. Other people hear you out and chime in as to what they think you should do, basically a stranger’s input. Meanwhile the person you have a concern, question, or issue about is clueless.
Part of Being Human
Maybe that’s part of being human: not being able to communicate what you feel when you feel it to the person or people that it concerns.
That is why I don’t like soap operas. It drives me nuts when a character has something life changing to say and that is their only opportunity. But instead of spitting it out they just stand there mute. Their eyes look at the intended searchingly. Please read my mind they think. Their lips open and close, open and close, and then nothing. Cue to commercial.
The older I become, and the more I see and experience in this world, has shown me that soap operas might have been right all along.
So many times, I have opened my mouth to speak, having weighed the pros and cons of my words in my head, feel good about the timing, then nothing. Cue to commercial.
Communication Styles
Maybe men are from mars and women from Venus. This just aged me I know, but I don’t care. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is a book by John Gray that came out in the early 90’s. There is no need to go into what the book was about or go into the controversy it created because the author allegedly assigned specific communication styles based on gender. The main message is that men and women are from two different planets therefore communicate in a way totally foreign to one another.
So there are two people that have two different communication styles, love languages, and historical love cultures that come together, doesn’t matter male or female, transgender, queer, gender fluid, gay, lesbian, etc., you get it, that have no idea how to translate how they feel or what they think about all matters of love to this other human being that is equally fearful to say the first word.
I used to tell my kids, “If you can’t talk about sex with the person you want to have sex with then you’re not ready to have it.” I should have taken it a step further. “If you don’t feel safe and comfortable openly expressing yourself to someone you’re dating or thinking about marrying then you should end the relationship immediately.”
However, I didn’t know that then. I know it now. But the hardest thing in life to do is live by example. Why? Because you will fall short. Sometimes we forget that we are human, and humans make mistakes.
Speak
I never felt more human than when my kids were pre-teens and teenagers. I made a lot of mistakes, and try as I might, I couldn’t avoid making them. So, one day I decided to communicate that sentiment to each one when the opportunity presented itself. I told them that I was doing the best that I could considering where I came from.
I still stand there sometimes, with something to say, mute. Sometimes I choose not to jump on the merry go round because what I want to say has already been said and historically the conversation did not end well. I choose my battles.
Sometimes, my words are unnecessary, and I decide to leave them as thoughts.
And then there are times when I shelf a valid and important thought or question because I don’t want to make anyone mad. That’s a sign that you should move forward. Every opportunity to share your heart that is not taken becomes a current that moves you farther away from connecting with someone you love.
There is only one way to find out if your heart will be safe in someone else’s hands, if your words will be held tenderly, if your well-being is just as important to them as it is to you, and that is to speak.
If you hold everything in, your persona, your well-developed character will be the one on the stage and you’ll be backstage blaming your audience for not knowing who you are.
“You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart.”
John Ford
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