The Unspoken

Lately it seems as if words are too much.

What is spoken cannot be taken back; and this Christmas I realised that many things need not be said. It is actions that matter; it is change that counts. This holiday was about a marking of change and as per my usual inclination, I defaulted to words. Words mark occasions. But I saw something different. As I engaged with each person, family or friend, I saw each person in his or her own space, his or her own struggle, his or her own walk. I saw that there was no desire to communicate this experience, no desire to cross-talk; rather, what was resolved personally would soon come out in how he or she would live his or her life thereafter. Change in actions, in deeds, not in words.

So this holiday, the reticence between all of us, - all of the unspoken - I realised, was not about disengaging but about engaging in a new way. And in honesty, I'm struggling to make sense of the how. I struggle with the comparmentalised places in all of us; things now reserved and unable, perhaps unwise to share. I think I failed tonight. I put words to observations that should remain acknowledged only in our hearts; they need not be spoken aloud. For some seasons are too delicate, perhaps too painful (or uncomfortable) a transition, to be marked. Just as Fall passes into Winter by the mere sign of frost on a branch, we need not speak what will become so obvious, what time will reveal.