Respectfully Yours

If you've been following along lately (and if you have, Bless You! I know that I'm a bit dreary of late), you know that I am experiencing some ... shall we say ... strife.

After a lot of obsessing reflection, I have uncovered the real root of the issue, which is this: someone didn't respect me enough to be honest with me.

This troubles me, as you can probably imagine.

As a result, I've made one of my local objectives (you know, the little changes) to be straight with people. I will try to be kind (I am a little too blunt sometimes; I'm working on that), but it's important to me to be open and truthful with people so that they know I think enough of them to be straight and candid with them.

This can cause situations, though. Like today, when someone told me that he understands how something I've been immersed in works and I had to tell him -- respectfully -- that I don't think he does, and then tell him the pieces that I needed him to understand.  I'm pretty sure that he didn't want to have that conversation --in fact, I know that he didn't -- but I'm also certain that is was vital that he see all of the pieces and why it wasn't enough to say that he understood.

He really needed to understand it, just like he really needed me to hear and understand him. I needed to respect him -- and be respected enough in turn -- to have that conversation.

It's not enough otherwise. I've had to learn that the hard way, but I get it now.