BIRDS OF A FEATHER

On Sunday, I fed friends and family in an Easter dinner. Since my entire family was not able to attend, for the first time, I invited a cousin and her husband, a friend who now lives nearby, two of my brothers and my three older nephews. One brother was a surprise attendee. One nephew had gone down because of an all nighter and didn’t, but another did. Everyone got along and some stayed late for quite a long visit.

In the post mortem, my friend said that she’d enjoyed herself. She again met in person family members of mine she had not seen since my wedding all those years ago, but had, of course, often heard about from me.

Our late husbands worked together for a couple of decades and died within two years of each other. She and I have both had cancer, mine 15 years ago and hers recently. In addition, she and her husband knew my husband long before I did as well. Obviously also, we have known each other for a long time.

All of the above also tells you that my friend and I have a particular bond with each other based on many similar experiences in life and having some of the same people in common in the main parts of our lives and experiences.

Today we talked about a survey I’d just completed and some of the ‘odd’ questions they were asking. The study, about how concerned you are about your cancer returning, was bound to be unusual anyway. From experience, we both know that after Cancer, you are changed forever. Widowhood also is always a permanent factor and always will be.

Recently I have realized that I have some friends that I have known for over 40 years. One man was a mentor to me, one of my best friends I met right after college, my doctor I met around the time I met my husband, as is the friend I talk about above. A close friend of my mother’s also became a friend 20 years ago, just after my mother died, her daughter shortly after.

I can’t help but recognize that I have been a very lucky person and have had, and more importantly, continue to have, people around me for a very long time.

Not surprisingly, among the many gifts in life I have been given, these people who have been with me through so many of life’s experiences are among the greatest blessings. They are friends and mainstays in my life.

I consider myself among the most fortunate of people to have their understanding, support and friendship in my life. I am truly grateful.

BALANCING ACT

It’s wonderful to see beautiful children and watch them growing up. They reflect so much the passage of time, but also, show us the future and that it is good and beautiful because they are good and beautiful.

A few years ago a ‘village’ was raising a child. Maybe. However, the heads of that village, at least for that child are their parents. Even today when kids head out for daycare and pre-school younger and younger, it is still the parents who make the difference on what that child will be and become.

I do not fear that children will not grow up the way we did, with the values of our parents, forbears and culture known, remembered and respected, because I know our children are being raised by the children of our parents. I can see them in my family and in the children they are raising.

I therefore know that ultimately they will have nothing to fear from the mad society will live in and that like me, they will rise to the challenge when their upbringing and beliefs are threatened or questioned by their peers.

I remember the shock I felt when I first had freedom from the strictures of my very sheltered upbringing. However, the shock of the world so different from what we were taught and raised to believe, wears off and the foundation beneath is far more solid than we could imagine.

In my own family, my youngest sibling called me one day, many years ago when she was a young woman, and told me that our mother was dismayed (to put it mildly) by this youngest child and the views she was hearing. As soon as I heard what had been said, I realized that our poor mother must have felt a nightmare déjà vu coming at her.

The words of her youngest child were literally the same as she’d heard from me, decades before. Frankly, she must have felt she was losing her mind or shortly would because the younger generations differences from her own beliefs were rearing their ugly heads again.

Here we are, now 20 years since she died and today (and again next week) still celebrating our culture, saying the prayers we were taught and looking with pride at the next generation.

I know it’s not magic. It isn’t an accident that these young children are so good and lovely. I see the balancing act that their parents perform day after day and year after year. 

I see the sacrifices my family has to make for their children, just as our parents made for us. I see all of this and I am proud; of my parents, my heritage, my siblings and their children.

I celebrate Easter with a happy heart, knowing that however much of our time I live in the present; at heart I still draw upon my foundation every day of my life. 

I join my family, today and every day, on the firm ground that is my inheiritance and the lifelong legacy my parents bequeathed to us when they raised us within the village that we grew up in.

THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

There are a lot of conversations every day that almost require a translator to be understood the way they were intended. In fact, many, many books have been written about trying to communicate better. The writers try and show us some obstacles we need to overcome in order to be understood by other people. This is usually not as easy as we think.

My favourite of this genre is called The Art Of Talking So That People Will Listen – Getting Through to Family, Friends and Business Associates by Paul W. Swets.

Recently I spoke about how Men, when faced with the (usually) high pitched voice of a Woman, tune out when many words accost them. I compared what they heard to a wall of words which sound to them as blah blah blah blah blah. 

It seems to take most Women, and Men, almost a lifetime to figure out that we need to communicate differently with the opposite sex, than with our own.

It is especially damaging to get the above ‘blah’ reaction at work where there is no emotional tie to mitigate the damage that is being done to your career. You usually don’t get a second chance, to change the impression or a ‘do over’ of the point you were trying to make.  

It is of course, not only Men we need to communicate with and not always only Men who are finding what you are trying to say unintelligible. All members of our own sex, don’t speak the same language we do either. We do not, after all, talk about the Tower of Babel without reason.

Coming from a large family, I often find myself hearing one person or anothers grievances against someone else. In addition, a variety of friends and acquaintances who call are trying to share something of their day and it’s challenges. I would say that most phone calls are from someone who has called you hoping you will listen to what is bothering them and lend them your support.

Often the conversation on a ‘bad day’ takes the form of ‘he said and then he said’ or ‘can you believe what she said’. I can think of a few ways that can help us deal with this and most of the conversations we have with other people. I think some of them are worth thinking about.

A lot of people, knowing both parties involved, would do just about anything they can think of not to get involved. They seem to know that they will end up in the middle of a feud of some sort between these two people who are arguing, at least today, with each other about something.

Those that can remain neutral, despite our best efforts to enlist them on our ‘side’ can be quite infuriating. They will usually say that there are two sides to every story. Some of them will even say there are three: your side, their side and the truth. Most annoying of all, these people may also say that they don’t have a problem with the other person, and most aggravating of all to us, they tell us then and there that they will not take sides.  

Most people, generally speaking, will usually just let the aggrieved person talk to, and at them, when they call. Most of us will let the person vent their frustrations until they run out of words, or have to stop for air, whichever comes first.

Unfortunately, unlike that rare person who is able to stay neutral, most of us, find that we eventually feel the need to comment on what is being said to us. Although, we wish we could be like the neutral person above, we know we can’t.

Experience has taught us, or will eventually teach all of us, that we are asking for trouble if we get involved. In fact, we actually know this is not a good thing to do, even before we start to speak. Unfortunately, when we feel the need to intervene, we almost can’t help ourselves and not say what we feel we need to say.  

This is even worse, when we feel we need to tell the person we are speaking with that we feel that they are wrong. You might begin by trying and tell them that you think that the other person probably didn’t mean it the way they took it. 

Telling someone they are wrong is almost guaranteed to put you in the wrong. Up until that point, the disagreement had been between two people, not with you. Now, if you are really unlucky, and most of us are, both of them will end up mad at you, especially after they patch up their temporary problem with each other, along the way telling each other what you had to say to them about the other one.

We all know that no good deed goes unpunished. Therefore what might we do or say when we are asked to take sides, even though our fondest wish would be to stay neutral?

I’d say recognize that someone telling you something that went wrong during their day is usually just letting off steam. Other times, they are running an idea by you to see whether it still makes sense when they say it out loud. They might also be trying to enlist you on their ‘side’ when they are in disagreement with someone else.

Experience has taught me that most people are really not looking for advice. As someone once said, when I want your advice, I’ll let you know.

Most often our friends are looking for support, encouragement; a sounding board. Sometimes we are being tacitly asked to help them make a decision about what they need to do about a situation.

When we recognize that they’ve called us just to let off steam about some element of their ‘bad day’, we know that a few words of sympathy are enough.

In fact, most of the time, we are just being an ear and a friend and are most helpful to our friends, when we can help them sort out what is really bothering them.  

As a friend, we do this by listening. We also by listening, eventually hear what is at the heart of the wall of words coming our way.

Once we recognize what the problem really is, we can then let them know that we support them because we are their friends. We reassure them, with our confidence in them, that tomorrow it will all feel better; usually after a good night’s sleep. That is our real job as a friend, and most of us who keep our friends, do it fairly well. Along the way, because of this, we also learn how to talk to other people as well.

TALKING TO MEN

I usually speak in sentences. Unfortunately both the world, most types of social media and the Male world in general does not.

Because I worked with Men for most of my working life, I had to learn to organize and edit both my way of speaking and especially my way of writing whenever I wanted/needed to communicate something to a man.

I knew that whatever I had to say, it had better be short, succinct and come to the point.

Likewise I came to understand that, the devil really was in the details. I knew that were I to put too many details into what I had to say, I might as well stop and walk away because I would not get my message across.

MEGO – My Eyes Glaze Over is something most Men experience when listening to the wall of sound coming from a Woman. Usually all they are hearing before descending into MEGO is blah,blah,blah,blah,blah. They wait for the (often) high pitched noise to stop to try to make their escape.

Women’s communication on the other hand probably baffles men. The Woman on the other end of the phone is savouring and appreciating the details. She waits in anticipation. The Man sitting nearby meanwhile is overwhelmed by what he thinks is useless and overly elaborate detail.

Like shopping, most Men are not fans of long conversations. They enjoy hearing what you are asking them to hear, provided you can tell them what it is in a few words. The longer you talk, the less likely you are ever to get what you want.

Although most men are ready, willing and able to help you, with almost anything you need; they need you to tell them what it is. Most however will tune out whenever they sense you don’t know what that is, because they figure that if you did, you would have been able to tell them.

They not only tune out, but the more frustrated you become, the more likely they are to want to tell you to tell them what it is when you have figured it out. Most won’t say this, but this is what they mean.

Meanwhile, you feel upset and frustrated and ignored and use even more words as you get more and more uncomfortable, until one or the other of you, mercifully stops the conversation. When a man gets to the point where he is the one demanding you stop talking, you are on very thin ice at best.

I have learned that organizing my thoughts is mandatory if I want to communicate with a male. I urge you to think about this the next time you try and talk with a man and see him tuning out.

However, when I want to be heard out and elaborate and really look at all aspects of a situation in detail, I would call a Woman every time.

Save talking to men for when you are ready to be concise, direct and able to get to the point sooner rather than later. Oh yes, and also for those times when you actually want to get something done and not just talk at and around the problem.

Otherwise, switch over and talk nonsense and flirt. It really is up to you. My question is, what’s it going to be?