Communicate. Open up. Tell people how you feel, what you’re thinking. Stop holding it back.

This is not permission to be cruel and mean. Communication isn’t screaming, putting down, belittling, trolling, etc. Communication is using words to express our truth in an open and honest way without purposefully hurting another for personal entertainment and gain.

This morning different things happened, which coincided with this topic. And then I came across this video. Then later in the afternoon, I had more synchronicities around this topic.

And that’s the topic of connections with other people, opening up to them, talking to them, etc.

Even had a comment on my Facebook profile about this. This has been going on the past few days so I’m going to write this up since I’m taking it as a sign that maybe we all need to say this more. Not just as a reminder to ourselves, but in general.

How many times have we kept our mouths shut, held back our feelings, kept ourselves contained? How many times have we figured someone wouldn’t care, or they wouldn’t notice, or even that they knew already so there was no reason to say anything?

Like saying, “I love you.”

My entire life I’ve held emotions back. My feelings. My expressions of those feelings. I have kept myself restrained from telling people that I loved them. Not too long ago. Just a few years I suppose. I swore never again to keep myself held back. Not just feelings, but my life, my attraction (or lack of it) to other people. It hurts to have people not return feelings. That is a boat I am familiar with floating in alone. I have had far too many that I’ve had feelings for who haven’t felt the same back.

But then I’m sure many men who’ve known me could say the same. The thing with that? Some of those may have been people I had feelings for, but was afraid to express them to. So because they held themselves back from the expressions to me, I moved on, and they lost out. Now I realize yes, as much as that hurt me, I will make an amazing partner to someone. To the someone who chooses me as much as I choose them, and that is why it didn’t work out. It’s because I need that equal. That giver of generosity as I am. That extra special person as I’m not like other people. My editor told me something that truly hit a nerve. I’d confessed I’d never really known what it was like to be romantically loved.

Stalked, raped, harassed, abused? Oh sure. But someone who loved me as I know I deserve and someone who chose me at the end of the day above all others? Who put in the time, energy, and effort into me like I did with them? Who didn’t make me take a number. Who didn’t give me the “I’m busy,” excuse and then just not tell me they weren’t interested? All those lovely excuses and such? My editor told me that she understood how much that had to hurt to go through, but think of it as more that I was being reserved for the one who would truly appreciate me, who would respect the decisions that I’ve made to be who I am. And the person who would truly honor me. That doesn’t lessen the pain of heartbreak I’ve dealt with, but it does put a different stance to it I never considered.

Think of the men in my life who could’ve had the chance to experience that with me, and who didn’t because they held back their emotions and how they truly felt? Not knowing that maybe, just maybe there was a chance that mine were just as strong, and I would be that person for them? Because the thing with me? When I commit my heart? It’s always theirs. Which is why I’ve only deeply deeply loved a couple men in my life. One I knew my entire life.

The other I met about two years ago through Facebook. I swore never to develop feelings for someone I’d met through a social network too. Not like that. But it happened. I’ve seen it happen with friends, we’ve all heard about it, but from my experience with “men online,” I swore them off. Which is why I told him too that life found a way to put us right in each other’s paths. It was interesting to me when I admitted that to an old friend who I knew was supremely cynical in love. I mean he is the ultimate playboy, never hesitates to tell women that there will be nothing but sex with him. As he’s told me plenty. And in his own words, “but then I’m a pig,” lol. He and I have only ever really been what one would consider pen pals. For some strange reason we worked as friends. I always think of the angel and devil. Well, the universe worked through him to explain just how different this connection was for me.

But I bring him up in particular because he’s lived his life in some negative ways. Never really connecting with another human being has led him down a path none of us would want. Mainly, he is in prison right now. I’m obviously not going into detail about him since that’s his life and I don’t discuss private stuff like that. However, on the topic of holding back emotions, I recently learned (through my own realization) why he re-entered my life. The biggest reason being he was unfinished business because I held my emotions back with him and I regretted it. It was because of who he is, what he’s like. I didn’t want to open up because I feared we couldn’t be friends. Back then (nearly ten years now?) that was a big deal for me, not as much now.

In the past some years though, I’ve become a different person. More so after meeting that person above through Facebook. The past two years have changed me as a human being and I’ve come to see what holding our emotions back (or our thoughts) does. All those people who I’ve believed didn’t care about me. All those people who I moved on from (and this is the reverse too) because they didn’t simply open up and tell me how they felt, or tell me things I should’ve been told.

I should clarify this and make this point. This isn’t about me per se. I’m using me and my experiences so you can relate it to your life. But this is a we situation. As in, think of all those who held back from you and you moved on, or you held back from and they moved on. It’s just easier to write it out as me and my experiences. 

We often believe that we don’t need to say something, but then if your best friend died tomorrow, did you tell her/him/them again today that you loved them? Or did you think, “nah, they know.” And tomorrow when they’ve gone, is that the thought you’ll have or, “I should’ve told them I loved them”?

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I get those comments on Facebook too. How people missed my posts, missed me, were getting worried, but where were they the past few months I’d been gone? Where were the emails saying hi, or texts asking what I was up to, how was my day. Or the random funny meme they thought I’d like?

Again, reference this to your life. 

When you were thinking about that friend of yours, did you reach out instead of waiting around for them to eventually pop up? I’ve done that. Had a school friend I really liked and we reconnected on Facebook. It’d been a week or two since I’d seen him and thought I’d go say hi and see how he was. When I went to send him a message to see what he was up to I found posts on his wall from wife and friends.

He’d passed away in a trucking accident not too long before that day.

That had happened with my first “sort of” editor I had before Jeanie. She’d never responded to my messages and I’d thought she moved on. After a couple unanswered messages one going, “all right, I get it.” She wasn’t really on Facebook, but I knew she was having a bad time with her husband’s death. Not long after? I found out she died too.

The first guy was MY age. Back then probably around 35-36-ish.  We never know when we’re going to lose someone.

It’s so yesterday to fear opening up. To guarding that heart so viciously that you keep people at a distance so that their loss when they leave won’t hurt us. But I learned it actually makes us lose them. When we hold back from saying, “I really enjoy your posts,” then that person who is constantly posting and not seeing anything more than a casual “like” assumes that people aren’t really caring one way or another so they have no reason to be around.

Again, I should say that I’m not referring to keeping track of comments and likes. What I’m saying is that this new “casual” form of connection doesn’t work. A “like” doesn’t tell someone what SAYING to them, “I love you,” does. A “love” on an Instagram image doesn’t tell your best friend, “I am mad in love with your outfit.” We need communication. We need hearts to reopen.

Yes, we all get robot responses to posts on social networks. We all suffer trolls. But when it comes to the people in our lives we really want to connect with and who really matter? Open up the damn mouth. If I really want to relate it to my life I will also say that I have had actual conversations with celebrities just because I opened up. Just because I had the decency to see them as a human being and not a digital imprint online because it was a social network as if they weren’t human. I treat everyone the same no matter where they are. Standing in front of me? I’ll talk to you just like I am on here. Just like I do on Facebook. You’re no different to me online or off. I’m still not going to be that easy to get close to here or as somene who lives in my neighborhood.

We need to stop relating human beings as “offline” people and “real life” people. Our connections as “oh he’s just a follower,” versus, “that’s my best friend. And I mean the interaction. I don’t mean how close you are to them. If I talk to my neighbor on Facebook, I will speak to them like I do you. We need better communication and instead of being in our heads telling them, “I love your humor,” we need to tell THEM, “I love how unique you are as a person.” Out loud. Maybe not physically out loud, but even in a text yes, it means a damn well lot. People always diminish not hearing someone’s voice because of a text. What if they’re deaf and that text or email or handwritten letter is the only way they can communicate? What if they’re in prison or a grandmother who can’t board a plane every day to visit you across country and can only chat with you on Facebook? That doesn’t diminish them as a human being. It doesn’t lessen your connection.

Connection is about connection. Time, energy, effort. Not about how you’re doing it but that you’re doing it. Investing in that person. You invest it in your work, your job, you should in your relationships. Otherwise they’ll fade.

You can relate what I was trying to make a point with to the phone calls back in the day where they didn’t leave a phone message. Or further back to the letters we’d send one another that weren’t answered until months and months, if not years, later. 

As you can see, I’m using social networking and texts as this current time line, but you can relate it to face-to-face too. Say the person who only ever spent half a second with us before they were having to leave. I’m bad with that those too, trust me.

But it’s also for when someone is trying to connect with us and we’re ignoring them over and over. We’re taking them for granted, figuring they’ll be there tomorrow, but they won’t. There is no guarantee. It’s not that we have to overkill. I can be far too exuberant when I DO express. I’m very playful, but when constantly ignored, when made to feel that my presence is not only no big deal, but they don’t care if I AM there or not? I don’t care what you say. Your actions are JUST as important in those situations and consistently holding back, ignoring. That’s a huge sign to all of us.

Once upon a time I used to go above and beyond. Now I place limits on my value. Opening up and honestly communicating how I feel is important to me though.

HOW we connect and communicate isn’t important. When we connect online, we’re actually, in some ways, connecting deeper. Same as letters, texts, any written form of communication because if we’re being clear, we’re not connecting with the face of the person. What we’re doing is connecting in a deeper way. I’m so quiet face-to-face that opening up is severely hard for me that way. So when people read things like this, they get to really know who I am when I write.

Communication. That is truly the most important thing. Opening up. The old way no longer works. We have to use our words that we were (in some cases) never even taught. And that goes for men too. You guys can and do open up. You do it with one another. You do it with parents. You do when you don’t realize you do. How you say things isn’t as important as you saying it. Just, try.

When we don’t, we can get really lonely thinking a thousand different things and the truth it? Connection comes through intimacy. Intimacy comes through communication and opening up.

No more assuming they don’t need to hear it.

No more fearing saying what you feel.

No more holding back from being the best and most divine being (that you are!) you can be.

Open up. Say what you need to say. It’s not about being quiet. I’m very quiet and a thinker. But that doesn’t mean that if I want to tell you I love you? I won’t. Because now if I want to? I will freakin tell you I love you. I will shout it from the rooftops. I will say it. I can reference a moment regarding the man above. I had even said it on Facebook. I told him I freakin loved him so damn much. To anyone on this planet they’d think, so?

I’ve never said that to anyone in front of other people. 

Not the person I grew up with, not people I grew up with, not my best friend. Nobody. Never have I opened up with anyone like I had with him in the past two years. Much of it comes from having been opening up with my editor and finding her still here. That really is what it is for many of us too, isn’t it?

We’ve opened up and we’ve given generously, only to find them gone down the line. Only to have them tell us in their own way that sorry, but they didn’t feel the same, didn’t want the same.

But every time it went wrong in our lives with one person? It was teaching us, it was growing us. It was helping us become the person we needed to be for that person down the line. And it was putting us one step closer to them.

If we continue to hold back out of fear or thinking they don’t need to hear it though, what we’re doing is risking that person not knowing. It’s that quote.

And who wants to end up sitting by themselves with tons of stuff, but realizing that that moon was what we wanted all along?

At the end of your life, it’s not all those trips you took that you’ll be enjoying and holding onto. It’s not the money you made at work. It’s not the stories you get to tell your friends of all the drunken nights out (this isn’t one I can relate to though, just using it for example, lol).

What matters at the end is if you have that person beside you who you connected with deeply. I know I’m a deeply romantic individual at heart, but is there anything else that can wrap its around around you and hold you tight? I adore my pets, but I do hope to experience that great love in my life. I do hope to have that feeling and to know what it was like to be loved and love with every fiber of my being.

But it’s also important to me to know that I have never held back. Not even the hard things. Because if I hold back that I’m not interested in someone then I’m walling them in and not allowing them to move on. I’m stopping them from finding that great love. Yes, I’ve told men I wasn’t interested in them that way and they have talked about “building a bridge,” to my love to which they obviously didn’t get the point. So on occasion we have to be harsh and completely block them out of our existence.

Even with that hard stuff. Why would you ever stand in the way of someone finding love? If they aren’t interested, let them go, move on, and realize there is someone out there who wants it as badly as you. Who will open up to you, hold onto you, and never allow another that chance because they’ll know: you’re it for them.

Sometimes opening up does come in the form of having to tell someone you’re not interested. That you’re not feeling the way they are. That you’re not it for them. But it can also produce the opposite. We may never feel that loneliness again. We may never have to know what it’s like to not have that partner in crime to come home to at night. We find that equal, we hold onto them. And if they weren’t it, then it means that there is another for you, and they have helped you move that one step closer to them.

Even when it comes to friendships. That all sounds like I’m referring to just romantic love, but it doesn’t have to be. Even when it comes to friends. It took my editor almost 6 years to finally get me to open up. I still have problems truly believing that tomorrow she won’t be gone. It’s a symptom of suffering broken trust too many times. Of suffering too much loss.

But now, more than ever we are seeing that difference in the world. Communication is everything. It doesn’t matter how you say it. Just speak.

Say it. Tell them. Now. Not tomorrow. Not later. Tell them this instant. Stop fearing the past coming true. Because this isn’t the past.

If you’re wanting to reach out to someone, then you need to reach out to them now. Nobody is guaranteed another breath. And while you’re over-thinking, worrying over the reaction you’ll receive, they may be wanting to hear from you, but fear reaching out more. One of you has to give. Your text, your comment, your anything. It may mean everything to that person.

Makes me think of a scene from a movie or TV show I’d seen. Guy was about to take his life and his daughter called him to see how he was. Or it was a mother. Maybe mom. Anyway, the point is . . . right at that moment they thought there was nothing for them and that it would be better if they were gone? Their child reached out to them thinking all was well and just felt like saying hi. That call made the difference between life and death. They realized they had everything they needed in life and changed their world.

I always refer to death, but that really is what it is. If we don’t appreciate, love, and feel gratitude for what we have, it’s taken away. And holding ourselves back from even talking to that neighbor who we appreciate for their quiet, or for being just a good parent, whatever it is. When we hold back, we’re the ones who make this world cold. We’re the ones responsible for everything bad we see.

Don’t you think it’s about time we change the way we are so that this world becomes that open loving world? You can’t change others. But if you pick up the phone, add that social network comment (let’s stop the hate for social networks folks as again, it’s what WE make it and for me it’s allllllll about connection, community, and love), send that handwritten letter or a card. Walk across the street and knock on that door.

We are so blessed to live in an age which we can connect with video, with calls, texts, comments, messages, emails, handwritten letters, heck carrier pigeons might exist somewhere, haha. So why do we still hold ourselves and the world back, from connection? From love? From being the divine human beings we are?

It’s up to us to make this world better. Each individual who changes themselves for the better and who becomes a better person can turn this world around. A single rock can send ripples into the biggest body of water on this planet. Think about that. A single small rock can change an ocean.

So what are you doing? Reach out and open up. Speak.

Nobody said it’d be easy.

And maybe this is the sign you’ve been waiting for. It’s time.

Today’s word count for Discovery of an Enchantress

Started Friday at – 57,048

Ended Friday at – 58,538

Total word count for Friday – 1,490