say what you mean to say

I live with cats.

When cats want attention, they stand on you, sit on your book, paw at your head while standing on the back of the couch, or lay across the keyboard.  When you're petting a cat, the cat will squirm into position until you're scratching the spot that feels best.  When a cat is hungry, you will hear about it, be lead to the food bowl, "told" how empty it is, and stared at intently.

Cats are not subtle.* 

But people often are.  Or they try to be.  There are times when diplomacy is the best course, when listening and following are important.  I will say that I am confused by how unwilling people are, though, to claim their own needs and desires, to ask for what they need and want, and to do so in a clear and concise way.

Sometimes I think we are losing the ability to know what we want clearly and the communicate that.  We are losing the ability to hear those statements clearly from others.

What would life be like if we had people in our lives that we could be honest with?  A friend to whom I could say clearly and easily, "I need help.  I need someone to listen to me right now because I'm having a really hard time."  A partner to whom I could say, "Tonight, I need to sit on the couch with you, eat nachos, and cry over Robert Sean Leonard's fate in Dead Poet's Society.  No, it won't be pretty."  Someone you were always so honest with that they trusted you meant what you said?

I have a few of these friends, but discovered recently that I was holding back even from them.  Almost the instant I stopped -- the e-mail I sent saying "I feel stupid saying this because I'm embarrassed to admit I feel this way" -- I felt a weight lift off me.  I think that looking back, some of the honesty I've shared, the openness, scary as it was and is, it made me whole.  It made me brave.  I wrote a scary honest letter and got back a letter that made me laugh in recognition.

It's been years since I started sharing space with cats, but apparently I'm finally listening.






*I grew up with dogs.  Dogs are also not subtle, but most dogs want their people to be happy.  Cats don't give a shit whether you're happy so long as they are.