I spent several days debating the depth of vulnerability I wanted to put into this blog, about whether or not to make it more of a bathroom read or a lunch-break investment, and to tell you the truth – I still don’t know exactly which direction this post is about to take. And I’m over trying to decide what to decide. I figure I have a handful of pretty solid thoughts and some conviction from the Lord. So, here it goes.
It all started with a text.
Except, it didn’t. Not really.
It started with the absence of a text. And what followed was a night spent rolling around in bed, restless and anxious, my brain stuck in that weird stage of consciousness where just when you think you’re about to fall asleep, you suddenly have the sensation of falling – off the bed, or the edge of a waterfall (or if you’re me, a dinosaur) – and you’re jarred back to your torn-up, sweaty bed to try and calm yourself down (there are no dinosaurs in here, there are no dinosaurs anywhere), and you try to fall asleep all over again.
“Did you make it home safe?”
I began to wonder why this friend hadn’t replied to my text. After all, I thought things were good between us! I had just hugged them goodbye two hours ago, and at that time all of their limbs had been intact. I wondered if maybe they had been hurt, actually legitimately hurt, while driving home. The roads had been icy, so that made immediate sense. Right? Like, that could be the only reason they hadn’t replied. Or maybe they had left their phone on the roof of their car as they had driven away, and it had shattered into a thousand pieces. Maybe. Maybe they had been carjacked, or dinosaurs weren’t in fact extinct, and one had brutally attacked them at a red light, diving through the driver’s side window and chewing off both of their hands, thus leaving them unable to respond to my text.
Literally, anything seemed more possible than the fact that they simply did not care to reply.
What I want to know is, when did this become a normal thing?
When did it become normal for someone to withhold communication from someone else in hopes of maintaining some sort of emotional advantage?
This literally happens all of the time.
We see E-cards about it.
We’ve got 106,382 reblogs on #relateablgirleposts like this nonsense floating around Tumblr.
Or this guy, who is clearly in a class all his own.
I cannot be the only person feeling the weight of this. The heaviness of, “I love you/care about you/miss you, but by telling you I surrender my emotional advantage over you and might actually become vulnerable for a second, so instead let’s just continue to ignore one another so I can keep you wondering what is going on here.”
Is this where we’re at as a culture? Are more comfortable keeping someone we might actually care about in prolonged suspense and anxiety, instead of respecting them enough to tell the truth – good or bad?
I’m sick of seeing guys and girls throw themselves on the sword of, “It hurts too much to say how I feel, so I guess I’ll just stuff it and hope that someday, if it’s meant to be, it will be.”
Spare me. What you’re doing is not some act of martyrdom. It’s lazy.
Because being honest with someone is hard, man. It’s hard to pick up the phone, or answer the door, and at times – to reply to a text. But as human beings doing life with other human beings, that’s part of life on planet Earth. You get to engage with other people. Sometimes when it’s seriously un-fun. Sometimes you would rather run away.
In closing, I guess I want to just say this.
People may not care about what type of oatmeal you had for breakfast, or what kind of career you have, but I promise that people care about who you are. And if anyone is making you feel small for caring about something with your whole heart, be it a guy or a dog or a civil war, RUN from that person.
Seriously, get the hell out of there.
Wanting to talk is not shameful. Wanting to be with someone is not shameful. Caring deeply is not shameful.
Withholding communication because you’re scared of telling the truth is shameful.
At the end of all of this, it didn’t start with a text. But for me, that text was the final straw in a long line of passivity that finally did me in. If people want to be in your life, they will make the effort. If someone wants to talk to you, they will find a way. I don’t want to be friends with anyone who is intimidated by anger or confrontation, because guess what? Life is sometimes angry and confrontational. And if you are too afraid of getting your feelings hurt to take a step toward me, I’ll pour one out for ya, and then keep moving forward.
What you allow is what will continue.
And sometimes, a person doesn’t need another chance to let you down. They need a chance to show you that they are worthy of your deep, tender heart – without your convincing.
I dare you to respect yourself enough to give them that chance.
