Feb 07
So, lately I have been really focusing on the aspects of communication that I use a lot. I have ramped up my writing here, I have been more focused on email and journalling, and I have rediscovered the mind map thing that I had been interested in and never quite seemed to have the time to develop previously.
I have had issues letting go of friends, and discovery of how that person influenced my life and how that influence has come across in my writing or lack thereof…
I have had issues with people wanting to hold on too much, to foster communication that was uncomfortable and inappropriate. I have thus been discovering what types of information decimination is “comfortable”, how the patterns of words can break down rather than foster communication between people, how words cling and stick and cause harm that doesn’t go away. I have noted my reaction to words and the use of language. I have learned what triggers different patterns in me, and how to avoid reacting to them.
I have been exploring what it is I need and WANT from my daily communications, what makes me comfortable, what makes me uncomfortable, what worries me, what distracts me, and what makes me just happy to be.
What are the modes of communication that I use?
Written communications:
I find that, in an average day, 80% of my communication takes place in written form — either through email (friends and work), text (RGG, G, Serin), IM (Serin) or blog entries, written communications are a HUGE part of my life.
- Text messages- a few months ago if someone had told me that I would be using text messaging as much as I do to communicate, I would have thought they were crazy. I mean, I had always maintained a life line with text messages, I would message G or Serin or MyssK or, when I didn’t really want to talk to him, TheEx. But it wasn’t until I started seeing RGG that text messages came to be one of the biggest communication paths I had. Although we have gone from an average of 5 text messages a day during week days and 20 on weekends to about 1 a day, it is still a viable means of communication between us when one or both of us in not at a computer.
- Email - I spend a HUGE amount of time reading and replying to email in the course of my work day. Since I am at a branch office, and a lot of the people I “work” with are at head office in Edmonton, the primary mode of communication between me and the various different departments is via email. I also rely rather heavily on emails from Serin (and sometimes G) during work hours to keep me going (lol). As well, 99% of my communication with TheEx and my lawyer are via email (mostly to have copies of all correspondance). Of all the types of written correspondance I get in a week, email is actually my favourite (laugh), maybe because it is so hard to come by.
- Interestingly enough, RGG is the first gentleman friend (laugh) that I have had that HASN’T used email as a “woo-ing” method to get to my heart.
- Instant Messengers - I have to say that of all the forms of communication that I indulge in daily, chat and IM are the ones that keep me going. While i used to be a lot more active on IM clients, I still usually have 5 different accounts that I will regularily chat on. This is the most common form of conversation with friends, and the thing that I look forward to the most in my day, and the primary mode of communication between myself and Serin, G, and MyssK… and sometimes RGG too (although not so much anymore
). I can be found on:
- GTalk
- Y! Messenger
- AIM/ICQ
- Skype
- MSN
- Blog Entries - Yes, I write a lot. I don’t get a lot of feedback, but I write because to me writing is a form of communication. I take this one step further. I have been READING other blogs!! And ENCOURAGING people to write in their blogs (yes, this means YOU and you KNOW who you are). And talking up the benefits of blogs… to the point that I have decided that I will be adding a blog roll to the side of my blog so that blogs that I find particularly interesting and amusing can be enjoyed by anyone who actually might see fit to visit MY blog!
- Social Networking Sites - Yes, I am a member of several social networking sites such as FaceBook, Twitter and PaganSpace.net (that’s apparently important because there is a PaganSpace.com and a PaganSpace.org, which I am certain are also trying to capture their share of the Pagans out there trying to connect to each other… ). I don’t use FaceBook as much as some people, mostly RGG pokes me there and I update my status once or twice a day, then give up for a long time then go back… its a thing. Twitter has captured me a bit more, because I get to have text messages, and dammit, now that RGG doesn’t text me anymore I feel the need to use up the 2000 text messages per month by getting “tweets”… its like blogging in 140 character chunks!
- Mail - Now, I don’t get all that much actual mail, but I would LIKE to. I need to start signing up for more mail type stuff… the last mail I got was a card from MyssK (laugh) for Christmas.
Verbal Communications:
While it is true that 90-95% of my communication to other people takes place online and through the medium of written language, I do have a few areas of significant VERBAL communication as well. I am actually surprised to find that RGG and I have transitioned from mostly online and in text to a more verbal communication pattern, because I find that an unusal thing as far as I go. But there it is. Most of my verbal communications come through either phone or face-to-face converstations… and most of those lately are with RGG (laugh) or my kids.
- Phone - I have a phone. I don’t use the phone very often as a phone, and I don’t know why. I mean, I know why, right now I just dont’ have that many people who KNOW my phone number and I am not willing to give it out to a lot of people either, but I also just have a much smaller social pool than I used to. This is the #1 reason I do not have a land line as well as a cell (I only have a cell)… if there were more people in the world who really WANTED to talk to me on the phone I would get a land line (and if I ever own a home of my own I will get one)… but since I cut the Stalker out of my life my phone is really silent.
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60% of the calls I get are for or from the kids (as TheEx and I have agreed that the kids can phone the other parent 2x per week while they are at the other’s home).
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5% comes from my mother, checking to see if I am alive
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10% from friends wanting to know what I am up to or just to have someone to talk to — C or G usually.
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5% would be me calling Serin or C or G
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5% me calling my mother
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5% me calling businesses (laugh) such as pizza or plumbers or something
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10% would be me communicating with RGG (either him calling me or me calling him)
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Face-to-Face - Happily, most of my face-to-face interactions lately have been with RGG. This past 2 weeks I have seen him almost EVERY day (with the exception of Tuesday last week), but I know that when the kids come home on friday (yay!) that will change and there is a very real possibility that I won’t see him until Feb 13 (oooh… friday the 13th) because of the distance that we live apart. I will miss him and his girls… but I have missed MY kids.
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I don’t get to see a lot of my friends in person just because either they live too far away (darn it Serin, come VISIT) like Serin and MyssK, they are too busy like C, or they just don’t really like to be around kids and they have other things to do (like G).
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Podcast - Yes, I am intending to get this up and going again… and maybe by the time you read this (since I tend to schedule posts) I will have another podcast up and running and you should check it out…
And we can’t forget NON-VERBAL Communications (laugh):
It might not be a huge part of my communication paths, but I have been able to incorporate a lot more of the non-verbal/body language.
While i don’t spend a great deal of time in the prescence of other people, but I have been spending time with RGG and his girls and my children and a LOT of the communication in that group is non-verbal — a look, a touch, a caress, the way you stand — and its really GOOD. Its also become a major way I communicate with myself AND my higher beings, through movement and dance and touch and feel and smell.
Pam’s Life Lessons return!! (yay):
- Communication patterns change randomly, I am learning to adapt and deal with that and not worry about the status of my relationships because I have lost certain channels, because if I think about it long enough I can see that while I might not be able to rely on the original patterns that created the “love match” with RGG but we have started to forge new and richer paths
- Its NICE to be able to reach over and touch someone, without having to say anything at all — whether it is a softly purring kitty, a small child, or a lover touch is really very essential and something I only NOW realize I was missing a LOT.
- I really enjoy the spurts of time that I get to spend with RGG and his kids, and I hope that i get to spend more time with them AND my kids and that we are better able to merge our lives a bit. It is NICE to be able to have someone to come “home” to, someone you can help out when they need help, and who holds you up when you’re exhausted. Its also NICE to have people to eat with, because I cook for a frigging army sometimes!
- I miss RGG when I can’t be with him. I think I’m in love (laugh)… actually I know I am… and we’ll just see where that goes
- Its nice to just sit with someone and do your own things – for example RGG was playing a video game and I was sitting beside him knitting, we weren’t talking, we weren’t cuddling, we weren’t even really doing anything specific, we were each doing our own thing in the same room. And it made me smile, because it was so NICE, so much what I always WANTED in a relationship.
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