hello, good friend

Currently I’m learning a lesson which refutes everything my childhood self learned about self control and restraint. I’m learning the value of saying it.

As in, my recent papers amount to single sentence fragments meant to hide my immaturely-formed thoughts behind nebulous evocations. (How’s that for nebulous?) As in, I’m lately incapable of expressing myself verbally so I resort to pages of frantically-scribbled jargon. As in, this blog looms before me like a matrix of indecipherable binary code. Words, bleh.

Like the Grinch lamenting “Words, words words!” They make my head hurt too, Grinchy.

Maybe the years of emphasizing “saying it well” (thank you, English major) have culminated in a grand inability to say anything without processing the thought through a sieve of mental edits. Maybe I’m just learning to refine my speech, hold my tongue. Or maybe it’s a case of severe cat-got-your-tongue. Because I’m apparently incapable of engaging in intelligent, spontaneous conversation. I mutter crazy talk like “oh, well, ya see, like, it’s kinda just like, sorta, maybe, ya hear me, actually, but if, ya know?” (Excuse me, WHAT?)

Yesterday a friend edited my senior thesis paper. A kind gesture, considering it needs significant revision. Admittedly, I wasn’t surprised by the tactful “I’m not sure what you’re writing about here” comments. Yes, yes, an utter lack of subject would make it totally incomprehensible, I guess.

My professor, upon reading the paper himself, suggested that I could near triple the page length by merely explaining myself in detail … erm, at all.

Today a friend and I disagreed over a minor issue. Yet I found myself verbally stunted in expressing how I ever arrived at such an emotional explosion. Cavemanesque grunts of “Me. Mad. Now.” don’t exactly cut it as reconciling communication.

At home last weekend I (unintentionally!) said something awkward and off-putting to an old friend, attempted to dig myself out of that hole, then wedged myself deeper into verbal faux pas. Should’ve stuck with “Good to see ya, take care.”

Word vomit. Maybe it’s the incessant crossword puzzling that’s forcing my brain into word overload. Or the reading. Or the writing. Or all three. I felt the same way after returning from a semester in Spain. (Which language for which context? Why not use both? Or, hey, invent your own!) For months I communicated in disjointed versions of very bad Spanglish. Many thanks to my interpreters.

I could use an interpreter again. Or maybe an inner computerized voice to articulate for me exactly what the jumble of thought in my head sounds like audibly. In the meantime, forgive me if I say anything ridiculously incoherent. I’m learning to spit it out already.