I have always been called a talker. I have always been somebody to naturally talk to others. Here is a secret, I don't enjoy talking. I am very awkward. I say things that I don't even realize that I say until it is too late and I make the weirdest small talk. I try to use funny anecdotes to ease situations and awkward silences are way worse to me than talking.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy chatting with friends on most days, but talking just to talk is not something I enjoy, but I end up doing it quite often. Here is my dilemma: If I don't talk I look like a mad or grumpy person because I am also not a natural smiley person. I have never had a natural looking smile when I am just sitting or standing around. If I do try to then I have some awkward looking joker smile on my face and I feel like that is much worse. Back to talking, I grew up with it being just my mom and me. From time to time there were various step-dads around and step siblings, but mostly just my mom and myself. We didn't sit and talk constantly, instead we watched movies together. When I did see people I did have a tendency to talk a lot because of the lack of people around me to speak with. I don't remember the exact moment in my life that talking was difficult for me and the awkwardness began washing over me, but it was probably right after I became a mom.
As most moms could tell you, when you have a baby they become the focus of a lot of your thoughts and conversations. When you become a mother right before you turn 19 your friends don't really want to hear about how the baby slept last night or the amount of spit up he/she produces and so on. That is probably around the time that I got really awkward and tried to engage with people and they would give me this look that was like, "do you know what you are saying?" And I would respond with a look that said, "I can't stop being awkward, sorry."
The older that I get the more that I just want to clam up and not speak. I am afraid of the words that will come out of my mouth and the tone that I say it in and the look on my face. The thing that I enjoy doing most with words is writing. So, could I go back to the time where we passed notes to each other folded up in funny shapes or in a shared notebook? Can I go back to a time where writing was more meaningful then words that spew out of my talking hole?
If I have ever offended you, or if I do in the future, please forgive me because I am 98% sure that I was probably not meaning to. And I am also 98% sure that note passing isn't going to catch on between the 30 something and older crowd. I will continue to talk because I am not shy and I still don't like awkward silence. If I am saying things that you can tell I am just spewing out of my mouth, please feel free to interrupt me and help me!
