Have you ever been in the middle of a text or email conversation and suddenly found yourself reading between the lines?
Someone responds with “OK.” Or just a thumbs-up. Maybe something is written in ALL CAPS. You read it once, then again, and suddenly you’re thinking, “Well, what exactly is THAT supposed to mean?”
Twenty years ago, there’s a decent chance I would have thought, “Well, FU then,” and been done with it.
Thankfully, I’ve chilled the F out a lot since then and gotten much better at how I respond to communication.
I had a text exchange recently where I started to feel like the other person and I weren’t understanding each other. I felt like they were taking what I was saying personally, when I was really just trying to explain why I felt the way I did about a situation.
Instead of continuing by text and giving both of us more opportunities to misunderstand each other, I asked if we could meet and talk for a few minutes.
We did.
I told them I felt like we had misunderstood each other through our messages and explained what I had actually meant. They told me they had gone back and reread our texts and realized that other things happening in the background had influenced how they interpreted what I was saying.
That was it. We talked, we understood each other, and problem solved; the relationship remains harmonious. 
It reminded me how much gets lost when we communicate through a screen. You can’t see someone’s face or hear their tone. You can’t immediately say, “Wait. What did you mean by that?”
Instead, our brains fill in the blanks, and sometimes our brains are terrible little screenwriters.
“OK” becomes “Whatever.”
A period becomes passive-aggressive.
A thumbs-up becomes 
.
Meanwhile, the other person may have been eating a sandwich and thought they were simply acknowledging your message.
There are also things happening in people’s lives that we know nothing about. Stress, worry, grief, frustration, or something that happened five minutes before we contacted them can affect how they hear us and how they respond.
So my Something Good this week is simple: Have the conversation.
If a text or email leaves you angry, hurt, or wondering what someone meant, maybe don’t send the paragraph full of snarky comments and swear words you’re already composing in your head. Pick up the phone or meet…sit across from each other and talk.
You may find out there was never really a problem to begin with.
Anyway—Off We Go. 
When you’re carrying something heavy, find something that lets in a little light.
It doesn’t matter how tiny the good is. What matters is that you notice it.
Have a great weekend, friends
© Erica Shoemaker | Anyway—Off We Go
Pictured: Erica’s rainbow bridge fur babies, Jax and Oreo
. Their stories will be shared another day.
