When I was in High School, I hated how much I talked. It was frequently pointed out to me how much I talked, usually in a joking way, but it never was funny to me. It was just a stark reminder of the one thing I hated most about myself.
“You talk too much.”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“No matter when I’ve seen you, your mouth has always been moving.”
Hey, that’s me! Har, har. Har.
One day as I was in the kitchen, my Dad mentioned something about how much I talked.
“Yeah,” I sighed, nodding my head.
“You’re quite the conversationalist,” he said.
What?
It was like a sort of light clicked on inside my head.
Dad saw something in me that I never did, and isn’t that the way it should be? We always (well, MOST of us) think the worst of ourselves, and Daddies (well, MOST Daddies) think the very best. He saw the good in my talking -he pointed out the great thing about it.
From that day on, I saw the world in a different light.
I didn’t talk TOO much… I just talked! I talked more than others, sure! And thank goodness! Someone’s got to get the ball rolling here. What would we do without talkers?
And so I say, much in the same tone Sen. Benedict says “The world must be peopled!” in Much Ado About Nothing…
The world must have talkers!
In case you haven’t seen it, take a few minutes to watch probably the BEST clip in the entire movie. Also, consider this entire portion of my post in ginormous parenthesis:
A few day ago, one of my pinterest buddies posted a list of conversation topics to have with your husband. I clicked on it for fun. I never needed any conversation help with Danny.
One day, if you’re bored, you should call up my Mum and ask her about the phone bill the summer I was engaged to Danny and we talked via land line.
Then come tell me about it because my parents have never told me how much it was.
True charitable soldiers.
Danny and I stayed up all night talking MORE than once. There was just so much say! We did months and months of talking in a few short days! As a result, we were married before any of his other love interests could say “boo.”
And here we are.
How long has it been? 7 years.
Deep down inside of me, I have a fear of the 7th year. So many people told us it was the hardest.
“The 7 year itch!” They’d chuckle, patting you on the back and leaving you with a less-than-congenial pit in your stomach. Gee thanks, mister.
Well, it’s heeeere. As it has approached, I’ve come to realize that we’d survive. If not as ardent lovers than as best friends. Anyway, we’d never run out of things to talk about.
Danny was gone all of last week. He left Sunday night and I met him in the valley Friday evening. I was so excited to see him! We practically glued ourselves to each other’s side for the next 4 hours.
As the weekend progressed, I bring up causal business topics (bills, insurance matters) and he’d turn to me in shock, “You didn’t tell me about that.”
“I didn’t?” I’d respond, confused, “Strange…”
I’d relate stories about the children to others around us and again he’d say, “You didn’t tell me about that.”
“I didn’t? Strange…”
The thing is, I haven’t really SEEN much of my husband the past two months. I tried calling him on the phone this last week, but we never got much of a chance to really TALK. So it was hit and miss. Here and there.
Downright splotchy.
I was really looking forward to our drive back into town together. 3 hours straight! The kids usually napped and it gave us a chance to really talk. We were both excited about it.
(Are we nerds? Prolly.)
As we set off into the night, I remarked on my excitement. How wonderful it was to have ALL THIS TIME to really catch up!
Then I searched my brain for any topic of conversation. ANY. Nothing came.
Then I remembered the list I had seen on pinterest, and though it gave me great pains to turn to something I had mocked… I asked my husband what he’d do with a million dollars.
“Pay off debt, buy some land, build a reasonable house, buy a reasonable car, buy a reasonable truck and invest the rest.”
“Oh.”
SILENCE.
He cleared his throat.
“What would YOU do?” He asked.
“Pay tithing first,” I poked him jokingly so as to let him know who was the righteous one in the relationship -ha, “pay off debt, get some land build a house, take an exotic trip with you, buy a new flute, and invest the rest of it into helping us become self-sufficient.”
“Oh.”
SILENCE.
After a few minutes, I shamefully dug into my brain file to pull out YET ANOTHER conversation topic from the list.
“If you could be any celebrity at all… who would it be?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He said.
“Daniel Craig?” I offered.
“Who’s that?”
“007.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah.”
SILENCE.
A few minutes went by. I stooped again.
“SO… if you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
“Hawaii. Paris. Greece. Or Ireland.”
“Really? Paris? I never knew that.”
“Yeah.”
SILENCE.
30 minutes into the trip, I threw my hands in the air.
“I was really looking forward to all this TIME we would have together, and I’m having to FORCE conversation!”
“You’ll think of something,” he shrugged, “Car trips are never completely quiet with you.”
“Oh yeah?” I challenged him, “Well for the past thirty minutes, I’ve been delving into a list I found online and partially memorized. Do you know what that list was?”
“No…”
“IT WAS A LIST OF CONVERSATION IDEAS TO HAVE WITH YOUR SPOUSE!” I confessed, feeling very much like I had cheated on myself, or something.
“Well you’ll think of something,” he shrugged.
“Don’t count on it!” I cried, and then promptly fell asleep.
I went in and out of sleep, until I was forced to wake up because it was my turn to take the wheel. My husband was switching vehicles about ten miles up the road, and I needed to drive ours home.
“By the way,” I said, “I think you need to know I’m going to buy some Paris Hilton perfume. I love it. I’ve wanted some for years, so I’m going to buy some.”
“So long as you throw the box away. I don’t like looking at her.”
“What ever happened to the Hiltons?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “It’s all about the Kardashians now.”
“Who are they anyway? I’ve always wanted to know what the big deal was and exactly what it was that made them famous.”
“The mom has something to do with photography. Models? I don’t know. And if you ask me, Kim’s the only on worth being on TV. Chloe isn’t all that great.”
“Excuse me?” I laughed, “Who are these people?”
(It must here be mentioned that I’ve never seen any television show about the Kardashians.)
“The Kardashians. I watched a few episodes this week. Anyway, The Simple Life was dumb.”
“The what?” I asked.
“That show with Paris Hilton. It was dumb.”
“Oh…” I said, a little blindsided over the new side of my husband I was seeing.
“What was her friend’s name?” He asked.
“OH, she did have a friend. I can’t remember.” I shrugged.
“Nicole Richie!” He said, snapping his fingers.
This from the man who didn’t know who Daniel Craig was? I’m impressed.
He gave me a quick catch-up on who the Kardashians were (am I spelling their name right?) and then the conversation ball was finally rolling… just in time for him to leave me. Again.
Also, last night I also confessed to my husband that I’d really rather not watch any of the Back to the Future movies OR any Star Wars movies of any kind.
His reply?
“What is WRONG with you?!”
Ah, seven years…
If it wasn’t for talkers, us listeners would sure have it hard. There are few things sweeter than a well told tale.