Communications Breakdown

Why is it that in the world we live in, there are always obstacles in our way? One of the biggest obstacle in my life is communication. I can feel comfortable talking to the CEO of the company about any subject he throws at me, yet I have trouble telling someone right in front of me what I think or how I feel.

The problem isn't with the person usually. It is with the situation at hand. I can talk to anyone about vacation or tell corny jokes. Business is not an issue in most cases. The biggest obstacle I face is telling special people in my life how I feel. Most of the time, I get so frustrated with myself that end up writing down my feelings, never to show them to the person that should know. This has happened to me since high school. I think it partly has to do with how my family dealt with relationships growing up.

There was never any discussions about how relationships work or problems in my parents relationship. They never really argued much in front of me. Everything would just get quiet. Seems like any time a subject dealing with relationships came up, silence immediately followed. Feelings weren't discussed or addressed publicly, good or bad. Relationships weren't good or bad. They just were there. Between that and my own lack of relationships in high school, I sometimes wonder if I'm interpreting correctly. I set some stupid goals in school that I wouldn't make any commitments to any relationships until I was mentally and financially able to support them. I had seen too many friends and their families fall apart because of simple things. Things always just worked out in my family and watching other families tear apart because they didn't have money to by all the toys they wanted bothered me terribly. My family wasn't much for material things. We had what we needed and a few extras, but never anything extravagant. I enjoyed my childhood for the most part without all the frills.

Now, here I am, wondering why I can't say what I want to say to the special people in my life. I guess I still fear the response I'll get. I'm not afraid of the rejection. I've been rejected so often in my life that my goal of stability wasn't hard to manage. It kept getting pushed further and further down the road. I've put a lot of thought into why I can't just say what I feel and have come up with a two fold fear that holds me back. The strongest of the two fears is that in expressing how I feel, the intended recipient will be hurt by something I say or do and I will lose the special connection that I have with them. The second fear is only slightly less disturbing, that they will laugh because I have misinterpreted some sign along the way or worse, will have thought there was a sign that wasn't really there. Even now, I fear that this will be read and things will change.

Change isn't a bad thing. As a matter of fact, right now I crave change, if its the right change. Some day, maybe, I'll let those special people in my life read what I have written. It's not much but it contains the emotion pent up, tearing at my soul to be released. This blog and the Yahoo 360 blog have been attempts to strengthen my resolve to express my feelings. Slowly, I grow more confident in myself. The hardest part has been learning to trust my feelings and learning to trust that the special people in my life care for me because I am who I am.