Look Who's Talkin'

Have you ever been around someone who talked too much?  Too fast?  Too detailed? Too private?  Too ___________ (fill in your own experience)?

I have.  And I don't really like it.  Sometimes it's funny for a bit or interesting at first.  But usually, at some point during their one-sided conversation, I start thinking about how it's humanly possible for one person to talk so much or so fast, or about how I wish they would just stop because this is something that I so do not need to know. 

Where is their stop button, or a slow-down option, or their filter, for heaven's sake?!  Why don't they have one?!

It's funny because I have spent most of my life wishing that I was more outgoing.  Too shy to speak up in class or to say hi to someone who could have been my friend.  And I am now amazing myself by how I've grown and been able to function better in a group or speak up when I felt I needed too.  I am shocked that I am able to stand up in front of an adult audience and present, and even more astonished that I look forward to those opportunities. 

But oftentimes, I remain silent.  The times that I should speak up, I don't.  Things I want to say stay left unsaid.  Sometimes I bottle them inside and verbal fizz spews out if I get shaken too hard.  Usually my husband is the one left soaking in spilled sentences and pent-up paragraphs.  I have gotten better about that over the years too, but I know it's still an issue I have to constantly work on avoiding.

Tonight was a night that got me thinking about it again.  Jason and I are attending a marriage class/Bible study at our church.  In my usual form, I stay silent through the whole thing.  I just soak it in and fight back too much expression.  I can joke, but I don't get too emotional or serious.  Never in front of that large of a group. 

Jason, on the other hand, leads the prayer session, speaks up, and shares a lot.  He is the verbal to my nonverbal, the chatter to the box I hide inside.  But he's not any of the types that I named above.  He is just friendly, outgoing, approachable, and sincere.  

He knows the way I am and loves me anyway.  He doesn't pester me about participating more.  And I am happy about that.  But we did talk tonight about how I don't talk to him enough.  I do the same thing to my husband that I do with everyone else. 

One of my greatest fears is, that as a wife, I would nag too much.  That I would become critical or whiny.  It makes me shudder to think of my voice becoming as nails on a chalkboard to the ones I love.  I think of the Proverbs about the nagging wife.  Ugghh.  So, I stay silent.  Even when I should speak.  Even when my husband feels like our relationship is backwards and that he has a wife who acts "more like a man" (to use a huge, but widely recognized, overgeneralization) when it comes to talking and sharing feelings.  He shares way more than I do.  I use my counseling skills and listen.  I occasionally give advice, but I rarely reciprocate.  I told him tonight that I would rather type a million words to strangers about the emotional, blubbering mess that I am than ever share with or cry with anyone in person.  I think he sniggered.

I'm going to work on that this month.  Whether or not, I share more with friends or acquaintances, I am going to share more with my husband.  Whew.  Lets hope my sharing doesn't turn to whining and my speaking up doesn't turn to nagging!!

Comments

  1. I can talk a blue streak about stuff that means little or nothing to me, but when it comes to really going deep emotionally out loud--not happening, for the most part. (Though I'm sure my husband wishes I would talk less in general AND about my feelings sometimes.) It's much easier to be revealing with people you never have to see face-to-face.

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    Replies
    1. I always thought my husband would be thankful that I didn't always want to talk about feelings. Funny how they care about it more than we give them credit for!

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  2. 'left soaking in spilled sentences and pent-up paragraphs'
    First, what a great image, brilliant words. Second, it's very familiar. I fear my husband feels that way a lot.
    (And thanks again for the guest post!)

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    Replies
    1. No problem! Did you ever get the other video or the picture with the oval to work? Thank you! If you were a brand of pop (yes, I say pop instead of soda), what would you be?

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