What We Have Here Is, Failure to Communicate
It’s been said that I’m never around; and when I am, I don’t seem like I wanna be. Like I’m just fitting people into my schedule. That they’ll just be around for whenever I feel like coming around and oh hey, they should pitch a parade when I grace them with my presence.
I could understand feeling that way, given the tight schedule I’ve been known to hold. Can you blame a guy for trying to build a life outside of work when his work really doesn’t give him the satisfaction he needs and most people rely upon for feelings of success, accomplishment and pride? As a substitute teacher, I don’t feel those things. I remain feeling under-appreciated, under-compensated, and critized to go along with it; All while trying to do the best job I know how.
So my work-life and my personal-life bring about similar feelings and I’m left frustrated and looking for things to fill the void. Things that seemingly can only be brought about by not being around as much as others might like.
With that being said, I have made an effort to be more available; in the physical sense….as my mind is always at your service. I have enjoyed taking time off from sitting around watching the boob-tube. The mindless droining on of the muffled 52-inch is happily replaceable with more interactive activities such as racquetball or raspberry picking. I prefer to have live action over watching others “living” so I don’t feel it fair to say that I wanna sit around and watch football all Sunday. I will say for the record that watching the Redskins is a lifestyle that I grew up with and do not plan on growing out of. I’m the son of a man who never missed a home-game since receiving season tickets over 25 years ago. That is until he got too sick to almost live, and then I tried my best to fill-in.
Call it a Friend tradition! Call it my version of a Jewish tradition! Tradition is still a big thing, ya? Watching football is in my blood and here I don’t even stop my life to watch the Mountaineers in their stumbling season when support is something they’re desperately in need of….but I digress.
Outside of the Redskins, I have made more time for us. Yes, it was a request but it also allowed me to see what all I was missing. Watching life pass me by. What a waste.
Along the path of frustrations, I too have felt neglected. Together-time doesn’t mean time sitting close to each other and not speaking or recognizing the other person’s existence. Sure I’ve been known to do the same thing as I am human and make mistakes, but it can not equal the amount of unanswered comments and questions I receive daily.
For as wonderful as technology has become, with email and text messaging on-top of instant messaging, it is also a wonderful crutch to fake communication and the closeness brought on with live-speech. A relationship, this does not make. At least, not one that I wish to be in. Now with that being said, sometimes it is easier to communicate this way. Quick statements to bring the other person up-to-speed with your situation, questions, concerns voiced; in terms of inability to speak to one another. These are a few valid reasons to use this impersonal manner of communication but to use it as a regular mode and overwhelming mode of communication seems improper in an intimate relationship and gives validity to the thought that the iniator of such communication does not wish to acutally communicate with the receiver of the message.
I am also frustrated by not feeling as if I am heard. Being in such a rush to speak and make your point, one misses what the other is actually trying to convey. Communication, this type of interaction might be…but ineffective and has been known to cause more damage than good. Feelings are hurt by not feeling as if the other person has truly recognized and legitimized what you have said. By quanifying the other person, you have validated their importance. By speaking over them, a feeling of disrespect and unimportance fills the soul that is yearning for qualification.
I’m frustrated by the fact that I feel like second fiddle all the time. That I find out more in the presence of a third party, than if I was to ask questions regarding the upcoming events pertaining to you. I do not feel good to know that you speak to your mother longer and more frequently than you speak to me. That the conversations are more indepth and that I feel like you listen more to her than to me. Not that you follow her direction more or anything like that, but that you actually stop thinking/speaking long enough to hear what the other person has said, validate what they have said, and respond to what they have said.
I feel that in our arguments, my statements are disregarded as quickly as my feelings. That what I have said and what I have expressed as my feelings have less importance than what you have to express and what you are feeling. There is a lack of validation, a lack of giving-a-shit to anything that’s going on with me. That attention needs to be brought back to what you have expressed and a feeling that you want me to apologize for things I have or have-not done.
I’m exhausted from apologizing for things I don’t feel like I’m done or not-done. I feel that I have been doing my best and that the effort is not recognized and feel under-appreciated. I’m not interested in the chicken-and-the-egg theory regarding who started it. I am interested in resolving the matter, hence the efforts made.
I get up before you, am almost half-way done with work by the time you finish your first coffee of the day and am through with work almost 4 hours before you are. I am left with open-time to accomplishing online tasks, any cleaning duties, and other tasks before you touch the exit door. My schedule allows for evening activities other than: Errands, Work, Gym, Eat, Shower, Computer, Bed, repeat..that other might experience through their work week.
The fact that this schedule does not coincide with the schedule of “9-to-5″ workers is not a lack of care, understand or desire to spend time with my mate. The fact is that for as much as I am ‘not available’ and have to ‘fit you into’ my schedule, I am left feeling very similarly. The dynamic of Work, Gym, Bed doesn’t allow for a whole-helleva alot of downtime. I am understanding and sympathetic to that situation but I do not feel it is just for me to be solely-accused of not being available and squeezing someone into my busy schedule. It is a combination of conflicting schedules that drives the main rig of this run-away-truck. If I’m forced to lay blame which I would rather disregard as immaterial then I will blame the system as the failure. The system set up by the two parties and it is up to the two parties to iniate an adjustment to that system. It can not fall upon one person or the other solely. Expression of feelings iniates conversation over the need for an adjustment but both parties need to agree on the terms and standards of their system.
—This certainly isn’t everything. I’m tired as I’m on 12 hours of sleep over the past 4 days, 3 nights.
I got distracted by my cd-making. Anyway, I hope I made my point that you’re not alone in your feelings, and surprise surprise, I do have more to say on the topic.
Anyway, back to life
for your listening pleasure:
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