On Words Left Unsaid

Life Lessons Comments (2)

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. -Abraham Lincoln.

There is a moment in all our lives when we realized we’ve gone two far. The words are out, the email is sent, the dial tone hums in the air; the breathless gasp which lies in the air around us becomes stifling and everyone else suddenly steps away.

Recovery is difficult, some would say impossible. Those with some sense of decency would of course hold their head up high and walk away, never looking back. Others, who wish to go down in flames, tend to want to burn the church down, locked doors and all, and take as many down with them as they go.

Discovering which of these people you are is important for continued survival. I offer this because of an incident that happened last year, with someone i’d known at that point for nearly 2 years and saw and worked closely with 16 hours a week. Not a whole lot of time in the end, but enough so that even now, looking at those vapid, nasty, and pretty awesomely awful emails we sent each other in a two hour period, still makes me cringe.  Our discourse had risen to the level of personal attacks, and, basically, was childish in the end.

I’ve always found it rather therapeutic to actually write the email (with myself as the recipient), letter without heading , scream the words into a pillow then calmly delete, rip, or pat down said pillow when done.

What this does is release the need to say something that cannot be taken back, expresses the raw feelings and gives reflections to calm oneself. No decision made in anger is ever the right one of course.

Try the paper writing thing. It works. So does the email thing, thou you have to hit send, that’s when you feel a sense of release. Oh, just remember to email yourself.  You can’t unring a bell, and you can’t retrieve an email, no matter what Outlook says.

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OceansOfThought @ April 3, 2008