Last night I wrote an email that no one else would ever write. That’s how much I hate miscommunication. That I’d rather come off as brash, tacky or crass than wonder for the rest of my life where things stand. I have always hated being in limbo or not knowing something. It’s one thing to wait if you know you’ll eventually get an answer. It’s a whole thing to know if you don’t make the first move, no one else will and you’ll just be left second guessing yourself to eternity.
I also hate vague blog posts so for your sake, I’ll go into more detail. This particular instance involves a wedding from a month ago. When we went to WI for the homecoming football game on Sept. 27th, we saw a whole bunch of my husband’s family. They all asked asked us if we were going to the wedding the following day. We didn’t even know whose wedding it was! We found out it was a cousin’s daughter. This cousin was probably closer with my hubby than with his siblings. It was hard to believe we weren’t invited since we’d been invited to her other children’s weddings. The point isn’t that we should have been invited or even that we wanted to go. We just had no way of knowing if she had sent us an invitation and we hadn’t gotten it or if we had intentionally been left off the guest list. We understand that they can’t invite everybody and since we live in another state (IL), maybe they just decided to draw the line there. More likely an invitation was sent but never delivered to us. We have terrible mail service and know for a fact we don’t get all of our mail. We also get lots of mail to wrong addresses which verifies the PO’s incompetence. Anywyay, I was worried that she’d think we’d snubbed her by not RSVPing or anything. I didn’t want to wonder or have her wonder about this indefinitely. I felt like things would be awkward the next time we see them and I didn’t want that. It’s too hard to bring this up in person at a funeral or something so figured I’d just handle it.
Most people would just let it go and not think of it again. Instead, I’ve always been the type to dwell on stuff like this. I like to be on good terms with everyone and do whatever I can to straighten things out. Actually, in the past I would’ve just fretted about this endlessly and agonized over what to say about it and when. Now I’ve reached the point in life where life is too short to let things go on. I prefer to be straighforward about things and not pussyfoot around. On the ride back from the football game, I told hubby to call his cousin the morning of the wedding and wish her, her daughter (the bride) and the whole family well. Hubby felt funny about it. So did I. So he didn’t do it. I told him I wanted to email her and just tell her where we stood. He said it was fine with him if I did.
This cousin and I send email forwards back and forth. I had sent her one a week or so ago and she emailed back to thank me. It was pictures of fall foliage so she said it was pretty and hoped we were doing well… That just made me think there was no time like the present to address my concerns. I hit “send” and felt liberated. This quality of standing up for myself and confronting issues to resolve them has always been inside me. When I was younger, I was too afraid to look bad and was embarrassed to voice my thoughts.
I just wish I’d learned this lesson sooner. I know it’s not for everyone to deal with things head on. Most avoid “getting into it” with someone and sweep everything under the rug. I just can’t do it anymore. All my life when I would stand back and not speak up to make things right, I was the one to suffer. I would be the one to lose out. It seemed to only bother me. An incident on the school bus in 7th grade still haunts me. At the start of 7th grade, a new girl from another part of WI moved to town and lived down the street from me. Since she was new, I sat by her right away and started talking. We were fast friends and I was so happy. I can always use more friends. Someone else who had never liked me since grade school, one day took this new girl aside and said I had spread nasty rumors about her. I hadn’t but she believed this other person and never spoke to me again. Or explained why she stopped talking to me. I heard through someone else that that’s what happened. I was too afraid to confront the new girl and tell her that this other girl was jealous of our being friends and intentionally broke up our friendship. Instead, I sat by everyday on the school bus, watching the new girl get on and off the bus. Feeling bad every single time. We were never friends and I felt like all through jr. high and high school, she always thought badly of me. This new girl went on to be very popular, a cheerleader in high school and on the Homecoming court. I feel like if things had played out as they had meant to, without interference, my life might’ve been significantly different. I might’ve been part of the popular crowd. I don’t know if my life would’ve necessarily been better but it would’ve been different, for sure. I know this type of thing is common during the school years. I just wish I’d had the courage to rectify it instead of wishing it was different. This is only one incident that has happened to me. There are probably hundreds where I wanted to ask someone why I never heard from them again but let it go. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore. I want to know. I want to be in the light.
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