The Deafening Sound of Saying Nothing At All
There are some things we can never undo, and yet, people love to think differently.
How noble of an idea, but honestly, a ridiculous one too.
What makes us think words, or even actions, are enough to change a person’s mind or a person’s heart. What is this? The movies? Reality is best experienced with a heavy dose of practicality and rationality, which is something I learned not from Mary Poppins, but from experience.
What experience has taught me is sometimes, a feeling does not a reality make. I was reminded of this after reading the comments from yesterday’s post (for the record, I always read the comments) and seeing all the encouraging words from people. In their own way, a lot of people said to me, “You should just tell her how you feel.” And anytime we start pouring our hearts to other people about another person, that is usually the party line: “You should tell them how you feel.”
Here’s my question: What makes us think the person hasn’t already tried that?
For anyone who has ever been told, “Don’t ever talk to me again” and actually followed those instructions, you know what I’m talking about. The difficulty of quitting a person cold turkey is only countered by the pride we feel knowing we did just that, that we didn’t indulge in the person.
Now I would be remiss to act as though I haven’t picked up the phone and called someone after they repeatedly told me not to and my ex isn’t the only woman with whom I violated that rule. Sometimes, walking away is more difficult than calculus. We never can quite get it right.
But when we do get it right, there is no greater reward.
When I pour my heart out about anyone, know that before I said anything to anyone else, or before it was written for the world to read, I said it to the person who made me feel that way. This idea that my ex doesn’t know how much I miss her, or the other women I write about don’t know how I feel about them, is an insult to my manhood, though I don’t think anyone intended it to be that way.
Any man worth his salt isn’t going to be afraid to say how he feels about pretty much anything. There have been a thousand different reasons I have lost a thousand different women, but emotional apathy was never one of them. I go hard, baby. And then I crash and burn.
As a result, sometimes, the only thing I can do to recover is write or talk about how I feel with others. I know that plan of action kind of seems self-defeating, but going above and beyond it is sometimes just as futile. Sometimes, the only feather in my cap is the self-discipline I exhibit by keeping my emotions in check and sticking to the original plan of action which was, as she said (as they all say) never speaking again. People have to realize, for all the “make a move” talk, a move was already made and because it wasn’t my best move, semi-permanent banishment is the consequence.
This is not to say any comment left fell on deaf ears or blind eyes. As a matter of fact, when I ran through every one of them last night, they began to sound like a chorus line of, “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!” You fools almost had me pick up my phone and call old girl up to tell her I missed her. But instead, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, then looked in the mirror and said, “Go to bed, Jozen.”
Many of us would like to think the sweetest words we ever heard are enough to make all the problems of our past go away. But imagine if they came from the same person who once did the meanest most selfish thing that’s ever been done to you. Then ask yourself what difference those words would truly make.
I am honestly, the most expressive man I know this side of Barack Obama. I always say exactly how I feel to whom I feel, which is why, there are some people in my life with whom words just don’t work. For some people in my life, saying nothing at all is the only way they know how I truly feel.
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