On Communication and Honesty

It is no secret to most of you why I am in the field that I am in . Both of them in fact,

My primary career is in Communications. Telecommunications in fact. I hold a position that interface directly with Fortune 100 companies. No easy task. But one that I am good with.

When we first graduated college, Bernie's wife gave me a set of stationary ( which I still have some of left) because I was the one who kept in touch with everyone.

I will tell you that, while that is true to a degree, I have a tendancy to cut people out who don't return my communications. THey don't have to be in the same format.... If I make a call, and the return is via email.... that's OK - not forever but that's OK. I like email for little things, but I hate to type, so if I have a lot that needs to be discussed, I make the calls.

I was raised on speaking your mind and saying how you feel. To be truthful even as a child, I was never comfortable with the level of it that went on in my mom's home. But I do not regret the exposure. Because of it, when push really came to shove, I was able to voice the feelings that were buried deep in my heart. The good ones AND the bad ones.

I was able to say out loud to my brother, that I KNOW that my dad and I didn't rebuild our relationship after the divorce until was in my early 20's. And if we didn't have the music, who knows how long that would have taken.

Wiht my dad, it was not so much what he did say, but what was left unsaid. He never failed to tell me that he loved me. I believed him then as I do now. Without a doubt. But when I dated someone, he would never offer me an opinion. He would just say nothing.

I had fallen in love with someone many years ago. It was a person that my dad knew from another place and time. A person that my dad liked very much. But he didn't like his daughter dating him. Or so I found out AFTER my dad died. I had no idea. He never said anyhting, implied anything, not a hint, not a breath, not a look.

That, to me, is both good and bad. I would have thought that when we broke up, my dad would have said something. But it was left up to my step mom to tell me after he died. And then it was collaborated by another friend of the family ( Diva).

That bothered me a lot. Because my dad was a very smart man. But the omission felt like a stab to hear it after he was gone. I couldn't challenge him in any way.

I am an honest person for the most part. I can't claim complete honesty. I will omit so as not to hurt when I have no other way to "say something nice or not at all". I won't lie directly about it. I just won't answer the questions. But when it comes down to speaking my mind and speaking my feelings, I am much better at it now than I ever was. There's a lot at stake in my personal life right now which may have contributed to it.

But I don't think I can claim my current situation as the reason I am better able to communicate my feelings. I think it's my friends who have helped teach me about this. recently, as we get older and are losing parents, grandparents, sblings etc.... we have started telling one another how we feel more frequently.

I notice it a lot of my college buds - not a week goes by without us writing, Im'ing or saying it to each other or to VM that we loev ( or love if any of us could type) one another. I notice it more now than before.

With my crew here locally, we do the same things. Only they can type ( I can't.) :-)

I am more demonstrative than I was before too. I was never the huggy kissy type - I notice that I am now.

What I noticed about ME is that my communication and honesty really started after 9-11. Not knowing what was going to happen to me that day, being in NYC not far from the blast. Getting home and thanking God that everyone I knew was safe. Almost.

I believe in communication and more so now than ever before. I never fail to tell my family and friends that I love them. I never fail to tell the person most important to me that I love them too. I say it to my pets.

If you feel it, you should say it. If it's in your heart, put it on your lips.

You may not have the chance again.