Biting my Tongue

A strange thing has happened to me over the last few years. I'm learning to keep my mouth shut!

You could say that I've been a compulsive oversharer, like everyone cares why I do what I do, when, where, and with what outfit on. I've learned that not only do they not actually care, but they take that excess information and derive their own ideas about who you are and what you stand for. Usually, they're totally wrong.

The whole 'what they don't know won't hurt them'? Yeah, I'm pretty much buying it.

For me to admit this, it took me to realize how much I was telling people for the simple sake of filling silence. Why was I so afraid of awkward and quietness, and open tension in the air. I mean, I'm a writer, for God's sake, aren't I supposed to be all weird, and intraverted, and mysterious? It's time I live up to who I am, and I decided that to do that, I need to keep my mouth shut, and my fingers on the keyboard instead.

At least you can hit delete there.

That is the other point. On my way taking Caitlin to dance, a radio minister was talking about how we think we can say awful things, or expose ourselves to the world, and then just say, "oh wait, I take that back." Hell no, sister. You say it, it is on the record. For good. No take backs. No emotional erasers. The minister mentioned how if throw a bomb into your yard, there's gonna be some serious damage. Someone has to clean it up. Well, our tongues do major damage, and it takes some serious suck up to mop up that mess. So why not just hold tight to your words, and type them where you can backspace and pretend you aren't talking to or about anyone in particular.

Another good reason to stay silent.

Lastly, I have found that it makes me feel better. I also felt the need to explain myself to people. For the smallest, silliest things. Like why I let my kids have cheetohs, or why our house is always a mess, or why we have way too many animals causing us to further have too many damn mouths to feed, or why we aren't doing a certain activity at the time, or why my kid went out in public with make up on, or a tutu, or in a darth vadar costume. Or why I might be wearing a darth vadar comstume. I used to wonder if I was the 'keep up with the Jones's type', you know that ones that that tell you things you really don't need to know, like that their underwear are laced with diamonds, but then I realized that's not it for sure. Those people shower.

I definitely haven't mastered shutting up. Just yesterday I found myself over answering some mom's question about something with my kids. Most questions require a very simple answer, and I'm determined to deliver it.

It's also why I've backed off the facebook thing, from a personal status-posting standpoint. I used to spout off all day long worthless, meaningless status posts; like hey, I'm about to make a sandwich. Hooray. No offense, I have lovely friends that share lovely things on facebook. It's just not me anymore. The grass is just greener for me as an observer of facebook right now. I mean, I absolutely am thrilled to make comments on other people's muses. I think if I had a business, I'd be all over it. But I stay connected because there is way too much valuable information not to be. And if there is something really important going on with me personally, my good friends will know about it. And not on facebook. If I have universally educational informational that might transform a person or the world, I'll post it on facebook (but you'll see it here first.) :)

What I have figured out is that why it makes me feel better to shut up is that it validates that I don't need to explain myself. To anybody. I'm me. My family is what we are. We do the things the way we do things because we just do. We have happy kids. A happy marriage. A really friggin disastrous of a messy house. And dirty animals. But our house is full of more love than the universe can handle.

No need to explain that.