Silence Is Golden

A little over a year ago, I was asked to write for another blog. At the time, I was excited, and needless to say, quite honored because the author sought after ME and that made me feel pretty darn good. There weren’t many rules for this other blog, but the one that I seemed to break on a consistent basis, resulting in the owner having to send me reminder emails, was writing at least one blog post every thirty days. Every time I received that reminder email I’d feel like such a schmuck and also a little stressed. The latter should’ve been a red flag, but like many other times, regretfully, I ignored it. It’s never good to overlook your instincts.

 Well, the other day I received the good ole email reminder, however, this time the subject line was different—it read: Why do you still need these reminders. I’m an honest person, actually I’ve been told by those who know me well that I’m brutally honest, thus my first reaction was to respond with: Because it’s not important, however, I stopped myself and decided to proceed with TACT, because the blog is important to HIM, therefore I remained true but diplomatic when I wrote:

  I apologize for my negligence. There are some personal issues that need my immediate attention. Therefore, at this time, to be fair to everyone else, it’s best to delist me until further notice. Suffice to say I am honored you even considered me for your site to begin with and hope the future brings me more time in which I can devote to posting there. Thank you very much.

Personally, I thought it was, as I said, diplomatic, and even polite, and that would be that. I was wrong, because I received yet another email; it read:

Very well, although like our good friend *L* who is currently undergoing cancer treatment you could as easily have simply asked for some time to deal with these issues. You are of course welcome back at any time and I hope that would be as soon as possible.

I don’t know, but seems to me this man was looking for an email spat. I didn’t reply to that email. I said what I needed to say in the first one by taking responsibility, apologizing and thanking him for the opportunity.

 Just because I didn’t respond the same way another person did doesn’t make ME wrong. Plus if I truly wanted TIME to deal with MY issues, I would have asked. Also, I don’t have time to go back and forth with what he thinks I COULD have done.

 I believe in truth above all else, especially with oneself. I was wrong in permitting this to go as long as it did. I should’ve searched my heart a long time ago. My mom always says, if it’s important to you, you’ll make time. It wasn’t that important to me, even without my current personal issues, and that’s why I was receiving the reminder emails. I should’ve severed the relationship after the first one.

 Loss is loss. We need to be aware of the other person’s feelings but we aren’t responsible for them and we certainly aren’t required to continue the relationship. If we need to end something we need to be sensitive but the person receiving the loss needs to be aware that they can’t provoke us into a war of words or other depleting endeavors, regardless of how painful the termination may be.

And there are times when the best response is no response.