Talking About Talking

a new thing for 2024

Talking to people is always funny because you cannot predict the flow conversation. The internal monologue is a well worn path, even self-discovery is a form of reunion. But when you engage in dialogue with another person, you enter the realm of unknown. Not just the unknown of what they say, but what you say back. 

When I talk to people, I get excited. Maybe because I didn’t interface with a lot of new people growing up, but my heart rate ramps up during conversations. Time pitches into overdrive, but seemingly only for me. Some tiny switch inside my head clicks over, I start winding up jokes and loading anecdotes into the verbal sling shot. It’s an improv session, we’re yes-anding with best of them—free association leans into the farthest corners of my memory palace. A couple days ago, I ran into a friend at a coffee shop. Things started out chill, I was keeping my cool, until I found myself giving an abbreviated account of when I dropped out of second grade. It was simply to illustrate that I understood how overwhelming it can feel to feel. Was there another, more concise way of conveying such a message? Probably. I was just so excited to see her by chance, I got carried away.

My poor friend, getting bombarded with me being ALL OF ME before her dose of morning coffee. She took it in stride, but later I wondered if I could have scaled back on the rambling narratives.

I long to be a cool girl/chill girl. Offering monotone praise with faraway glances. Giving a smile but never a grin. Deflecting and politely redirecting when things get too personal. 

Sometimes I can access slivers of this persona—to do this, I channel the popular girls in middle school with their smudged eyeliner and side swept bangs. And truthfully, there is a wary side of me that as Boyfriend pointed out, suffers no fools. There is a serious side, the part that rejected childhood so I could adequately care for my mother. But for the most part, I emote. Sometimes a conversation will make me buzz, so much that I swear I could conduct electricity through my fingertips. I feel my heart get big and open as a satellite dish, listening and responding with all I got. 

This week I set my intentions for 2024—fashionably late! For the second year in a row, I followed a wonderful process led by Rachel Brathen. First we get closure on 2023 and then paint the shape of 2024. The purpose isn’t to form hard resolutions, but various goals for specific life categories and big picture dreams. The hardest part, but also my favorite, is to find a word for the year ahead. In 2023, my word was embody. The full affirmation was, I am embodying my magic. I had no idea how relevant it would be.  

One of my 2024 goals for the esoteric category of Soul was be impeccable with my word. For me, this starts with slowing down and allowing myself a beat to think before I let excitement carry my sentences away. I want to share only what is necessary—the good and the bad. If I really need to tell a story about someone or something, how can I hold integrity for everyone involved? 

My mother never let gossip infiltrate the walls of our house. I was raised with the classic if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it anything at all. Now that’s all well and good, but we hardly stretched outside our three person circle. My dad went to work, I went to school. We kept the characters of those institutions at a distance. Our world mostly contained my mother’s doctors and the neighbors. It’s easy to up hold an ideal in a bubble. Even then, I know we slipped up from time to time. 

When you have a lot of people swirling around, things get messy. Good messy and bad messy. Without the primordial mess made by sloppy cells, we wouldn’t be here. Mess develops, grows legs and makes a whole society.  

If we experience a shift, it’s courteous to let other people know. Right? Eventually everyone will figure out when change occurs or weirdness is afoot. We can piece together clues, determine that someone, maybe even a fixture, is no longer present. But do we owe a heads up to our fellow man?

And when we shoot smoke signals into the night, casting out the stars, what is the intention? Are we purely sharing information, or are we angling the facts into a flattering narrative? I’m striving to navigate the difference with honesty.

We know when we’re filling in plot holes with self-flattering embellishment. We know when we’re tracing old jagged paths, long after the circle has come full. It strikes a certain off-key chord in the chest. The trick is re-tuning to feel that pang in the moment, which usually requires slowing down.

Some would argue we tell each other gossip in order to live. Every species has found a way to spread information. We need to know where the food is, where the predators are hiding, where the hotties hang out. Without the art of communication, we would be dust flecks drifting in deep ocean currents, animated only by the swish of scuba diver’s flippers.

I don’t want to lose the connection of communing—especially now that I’m finally taking part in the outside world. But I know I could be more mindful, and not get lost in the hype of talking to someone other than myself. You could say I’m practicing personal content moderation. Giving enough but not overdoing it. Sharing, while really caring. Shaping each word with love.

I’m telling everyone here for the sake of accountability. The next time I’m bubbling over with words, I want to pause and speak with integrity. I want to remember that I have promised all of you: words are important, I’m treating them as such. 

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