Words

By virtue of this blog, you know I am a words girl. Born talking, I am all about the words. Do not ask me to divvy up the check because numbers ain't my thing. For me, the inability to communicate important emotions, events, or ideas feels rather like a physical amputation. Sometimes, you must keep your mouth shut. A promise, ettiquette, the law, privacy, whatever. And I am an excellent keeper of secrets, as long as they are someone else's. For me, I have a no secret policy. So when it's my kids, who are NOT me, but as close to me as not me gets, the secrecy policy gets muddy.

And as I work that muscle that keeps everything inside, and I wrestle with the uneasy quiet in the place where resolution ought to be, I think about kids who want to talk but cannot, for whatever reason. Or kids like my Rooster who can talk, but can't get out what he means, and so despite his best efforts, his emotions and ideas stay secret.

What must that feel like?

Not everyone is a wordwallower like me. Perhaps some people are born with the hardwiring to divvy up the check, and the inability to share does not feel like a constant throb of loss. I hope. I always welcome anyone at the table who just tells me what I owe. Sure I've had to exercise my left brain enough to get by over the years, and I needed more time than others to master the basics perhaps, but when I go through long stretches of number silence, I feel no loss at all. A terrible metaphor, maybe, but I hope the Rooster's challenges to communicate does not burden his spirits

It's just on my mind while there is so much I'm not saying.