You Talk Too Much...Good

Communication, communication, communication. Why oh why do we refuse to do something that could save us a lot of heart ache and pain. We insist on making things this convoluted puzzle that we don't even know how to solve....and we were the ones who made it in the first place. We always talk about simplifying things to reduce stress, but the very way to do this we ignore because that makes sense....right?

I wanna say that I always communicate, that I always make things easier for myself; and while I do this most of the time, there have been times when I totally went for the most complicated when completely skirting the obvious option of communication, and almost gotten myself kicked out of the house at the tender age of 6.

In elementary school, the concession stand was the place to prove your worth. This was the place to show that you had the goods to be popular: the place where you proudly displaced your junk food as a sign that you had made it to the hierarchy of the playground politics. As a child with a strange accent struggling to make friends with anything that moved, I knew that in order to prove my worth, I would need to get the necessary funds to purchase my power.

I could not go to my parents for this because junk food was against their religion (well not really, but they were not for rotting their child's teeth, and what parent would) so I had to go to other outlets. I did not work, so I had to be creative. I would take the money that was supposed to be set aside for offering, pocket it and buy small goodies, but a dollar was not suffice. I needed more, I needed power. So I had a short career as a thief.

One day, I saw my dad's wallet sitting on his drawer, and I went to it. My hands shook, as I nervously looked around, waiting to be caught, but no one came. So I opened it, and took all the money out of his wallet. I sneaked the money in my bag and waited for him to notice, but he did not, so I went about my business, conjuring up all the snacks I could afford with $27. The next day, as any child in my position would, I brought the cash out and showed my peers that I had what it took; I had the goods to be accepted into the cool kids society.

Too bad that when a 6 year old whips out $27 in class and starts showing it off, the teacher is not to happy with the disturbance. She was so displeased with my behavior, that she took the money, packaged it, and then had my father pick me up from class. She was concerned as to why a child would have that much money so she gave it too my father. This made for a fun night.

That night was miserable, one of the worst I have ever had. I was sat in a chair, with both of my parents facing me drilling me with questions as to where I got the money to which I answered "I don't know." My dad even asked me if I had gotten the money from his wallet, and I denied it. I refused to communicate with him and tell him, yes I did. Worst case scenario, I would get a whooping and be in trouble for a night, then end. But I kept lying. I was sent out of the house, up a driveway, and then asked if I was ready to tell the truth, which I was not. I would not tell him. I finally went to bed late late at night with me not telling the truth. My mother came in later on in the morning before she went to work, and told me she knew. They both knew.

The problem was that I knew they knew, they knew I knew, but I refused to just say that and receive my punishment. I caused agonizing pain for myself and my parents because I refused to simply say what I felt, what was real. Again I say, why oh why do we insist on making our lives difficult by not doing the right thing and just talking it out: being completely honest with ourselves first off, and then those around us.

Do me a favor: be completely honest and communicate about everything for a day and see how that goes.