When Words Fail Me

Lately I feel like I've lost my words - okay, try the last several months. I haven't written much, which I'm sure that doesn't help. I have been spending a lot of time alone, a lot of time not being creative, haven't interacted with a team toward a common goal. I'm not in a small group. The holidays meant I didn't see much of my friends... Somehow, a culmination of these and things I'm probably not even aware of seems to have robbed me of clarity I felt I once had. I have been putting my foot in my mouth, I have been accidentally offending people. I've been impressing upon others that I'm something I know I'm not.

When it comes to communication, I'd say I'm big on adapting the message to the audience. It's somewhat in our nature in fact, we use different dialects with different people (one of those interpersonal communication things that fascinates me). Sometimes I'm not great at it. Sometimes I think I've found a brilliant way to say something, that I've curated the perfect words for what I want to communicate - and yet I fail. Miserably.

And I've felt off my game. Here and there I've had a handful of conversations that were downright frustrating. It's like I'm losing my edge. And the funny thing about it is, the same conundrum arises as I'm writing about it: there seems no possible resolve.

When I started writing this, this is where I got stuck for a few days. I couldn't figure it out; how will I wrap this up? Without a good wrap-up, there's no point in writing if only to tell people I have a human struggle. That's the point of this blog, I have a human struggle and a unique perspective on what to do with it.

Well, the thing I realized is that it's about me. I'm the hold-up. If I'm feeling stubborn and prideful, I think everyone else just isn't getting it. And you know, maybe they aren't but, going back to the basics of communication, it's on me to adapt. Often, I am adaptable and I'll describe myself as such, but I fail at it too. When I get frustrated in communication, it's because I'm getting lazy or prideful. If I won't change my message to try and make it clearer, try to get through and simultaneously diffuse, then I can't expect resolve. If I won't dig into myself and exercise patience and compassion, I won't see a resolution.

What I've been questioning for both myself and others is: what is the point of conflict and dialogue? It seems all too often, the goal isn't mutual understanding but rather, self-assertion. When I see it, I try to remind others to choose compassion and patience and understanding, but in reality I need to start with myself. I need to take inventory of places where I lack compassion, patience, understanding, and mercy, then I need to enact those things there. I think of my least favorite verse in the Bible, it's a line about commenting on a speck of sawdust in someone else's eye, but you have a log in your own. It's the hardest way to seek change, but you have to practice what you preach.

So as I practice adapting my communication and enacting patience, maybe my patience and my understanding will grow. There are sure to be trials and errors, but it seems a worthwhile cause.

The Bends in the Road

Usually I'm prone to find a silver lining, the bright edge of a dark cloud, however last year gave me a run for my money. By October I was downright aching-hungry for the silverlining to all this mess that was wandering about my life.

I even got to have the Europe trip of a lifetime (okay well knock off a few bucket list items at least) halfway through 2016, yet I forget because the Dark, Dark place overshadowed it. And no, there didn't seem to be a glisten of hope in sight. It felt like if anything everything seemed to compound. So I'd gotten to a point of apathy, which is a bit of understanding that I don't have control; I can put in my best effort, I can kick ass at my job or pay off a bunch of debt and save up a bunch of money, I can put loads of energy into a relationship...and it is no semblance of control. You might think you're go-with-the-flow until everything feels like it sucks, when - all of a sudden - you realize you're just as much of a control addict as the next guy... The point being, it built up like a shitty sediment, and the vicious cycle of apathy and realizing you have no control doesn't help.

But there's a secret to the place where everything sucks -- some people told me in regards to the breakup early on, when it might as well have been gibberish which I only now know to be true:

It's terrible until one day when it's not anymore. 

I went to the doctor yet again this week and finally got answers - let alone confirmation I'm not just a hypochonriac-quack. See, I'd spent nearly the entire stint of unemployment mysteriously ailed by something. The mystery finally being solved (among other things) got me thinking: Fortunate misfortune, as my life tends to like to bring about, being without any substantial income or unemployment benefits has allowed me to get on state healthcare. Premiums and deductibles are extremely minimal. So with the possibility I'll need surgery to correct the not-so-mysterious-after-all illness, it's a great time to be unemployed and a little broke. 

Not long after I was laid off, I took the job hunt to a not-so-local but favorite coffee shop. It became the daily go-to haunt when I noticed a really, really handsome guy who also frequented made eye contact and threw me a smile...which also became a daily, multiple-times-a-day occurence. With a still-healing heart and a jaded attitude, I admired him from afar, doubting that my desire to know him would ever be quenched. People have different stories of how they get together, but in my book this one goes: I looked at him and smiled until he couldn't take it anymore and had to talk to me. If it weren't for an employment vacancy formerly believed to be poorly-timed, I likely would not have stared this wonderful man into being my boyfriend. He's more than I could've imagined, let alone being equally as vexed by me as I am by him.

Now, I will not go so far as to say these are the "whys" of losing a job I loved with colleagues that felt like family and work that felt important - I won't say that, but I will say when there's a bend in the path, we don't always know that where it might lead us could turn out to be more splendid than the path had appeared. The seemingly straight and narrow with its false sense of security pales to the beauty in the adventure of a winding, curving, rising and falling road; far more rich and worthwhile. Maybe such a curve will take you to a place you find deep healing, right into the very tissues that felt strangely and subtly off the way my tonsils have all this time. Parts of me needed the bend, couldn't be somewhere better without it.