I'm being bad....

and blogging at work! I can't help it though, Sometimes you've got stuff on your mind and just gotta blog ;) hahaha

So I have to admit I started writing yesterday and I never posted it because it just didn't feel write. It was a very negative, angry blog. Although I can be loud and talkative, I still don't always know how I want to express what I'm feeling. I'm a "thinker" and dwell often on my thoughts and feelings. Poetry as become one outlet for me to express myself, through writing and reading it.
This is a poem I saw today and wanted to share:

LISTEN

When I ask you to listen to me,
And you start giving advice,
You have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me,
And you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way,
You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me,
And you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
You have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I asked was that you listen,
Not talk or do – just hear me.
Advice is cheap: 10 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I’m not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself,
You contribute to my fear and weakness.

But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel,
No matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious, and I don’t need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what’s behind them.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works, sometimes, for some people –
Because God is mute, and He doesn’t give advice or try to fix things.
Prayers just listen and let you work it out for yourself.

So, please listen and just hear me. And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn,
And I’ll listen to you.

- Anonymous

I love this poem. I often feel unheard, partially due to my own fault of poor explaining, however I think everyone, including myself needs to remember the gift of listening.
I can related to this poem for many many reasons, but one of those many is the fact that most people I know and love are not able to understand the stress and strain of living in a large city because they never have! I think people notice changes in me and I feel criticized when these changes are mentioned, but at the fault of them and me, the reasons for the changes have not been explained.

I am a naturally very passive and easy going person, but I cannot be my natural self at all times in this city. If you want to be a passive and easy going person in a large city you must also be willing to be stepped on and treated very poorly at times.

I am no longer allowed to be always be my natural self now, passive and easy going. I am forced to be aggressive and very vocal and let's just say it, at times a bitch in this large city. Crowds bring out the worst in people and I live in one big crowd.

So one last thing, although it is not normally in my nature to be aggressive, remember this - It is never wrong to let you voice be heard, even if you haven't normally had this quality in the past; and you never know what your actions would be when assualted with aggression and rudeness on a daily basis, faced with the fact that you must fight against who you naturally are, so that you will not be disrepected and treated as a lesser.