Alone Together
It’s so easy to fall into a pattern of non-communication when you are with the same person for a long time. At first it might even seem wonderful, you can be in the same room and not feel the need to constantly talk to each other. But over time, if certain frictions have occurred and not been talked through successfully, the silence isn’t just quiet time, It’s resentment time disguised as quiet. Multiply that over years and you can’t talk about anything. Not only are you far apart in emotions but that lack of communication also leads to being far apart in interests, needs, hopes, fears, creativity, desire, and more.
Electric Fence vs Boiling Frogs
The silence becomes like an unseen electrified fence between the two of you. Touch it and you are shocked. Someone or something does have to break through that force field and be willing to accept the pain that comes with touching it. If not, you might feel safe for quite a long time, much like a frog that is dropped in warm water and feels fine until it finally realizes the water is too hot. By then it is too late. While you are in that water that is increasing in heat you might feel profound unhappiness, sadness and loss. But you might also think it will cool down on it’s own if you just wait it out. And you might be right. But you are more likely to be wrong. Either way you will probably go through greater pain than than if you had decided to break through the electric fence.
And who knows, maybe that fence isn’t as fatal to touch as you might think. It might actually be the very thing you need to save your relationship. Either way you will at least know and be able to move forward, right? Or is it just too dangerous to try? Are you in the slowly boiling pot? What keeps you in it?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who has been through it.
Quote by Malcolm de Chazal, 1902-1981, Mauritian painter
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Trivia Questions from Yesterday:
Questions: Which language has the least amount of words? Which language has the fewest letters in it’s alphabet?
Answer: The language with fewest words is Taki Taki, 340 words. The language with shortest letters is Rotokas, 12 letters.
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