Kimberly Joans' Diary

It seems that in the movies, especially romantic comedies, which tend to be my favorite, there are always misunderstandings, missed opportunities, someone running after the other, the other always out of breath, it is usually raining or there is a light snowfall, and they end up falling into each others arms. Even if she yells "get away from me" a time or two, they seem to realize that fate has brought them together, love is all around, happy ending, lights go on, theater gets empty. Ah, romance. We leave the theater uplifted, holding on to hope that these happy endings are real, they exist, even outside of the movies.

I was just told in an email that, "You can't make people love you. This is not a film script or a ludicrous song title." But wait, I've believed in those film scripts and music has been my life, my comfort, my belief system, my religion. When I hear a love song (which love translates to a broken heart the majority of the time) I just know that whomever the singer is singing to will have a change of heart, come running back. How could they not? When Phil Collins sang "Against all Odds" you just knew she would come back to him.

They say that communication is the most important thing in a relationship. But how can we communicate with one another when all we have learned to do is talk, say words out loud, but still not understand what the other is saying, what they are feeling, the true message they are trying to get across? It is mind boggling to me how much misunderstanding surrounds so many of my own conversations. Or statements. It is hard enough when you are in a room together, speaking words, observing body language, noting facial expressions, but now, throw emails, text messages, and Facebook remarks into the mix, and you really have one hell of a recipe for a mystifying word jumble. And the worst of it is, after a misunderstanding or two, (or two hundred) people just quit talking, they don't even try anymore. Silence can say more than a whole boat load of words and at times be even more painful.

I always thought that getting older, though tougher on the physical self, would become easier in many other ways. We've always heard how you gain all this wisdom with aging, and that in itself was enough to sell us on the idea of trading in our youth. Not that we had the option. Once again, it is one of those "things" we say just to make the trip down "I forgot my memory lane" a tad easier. In Don Henley's song, "Forgiveness" one of the lines is, "the more I know, the less I understand" and that is how it feels to me. Maybe we never understand. Life itself is such a mystery why should relationships be any clearer?

As little girls we focus on the wedding, but not so much the marriage itself. And little boys, they learn to talk, and shoot me If I'm wrong here, but have a hard time communicating. At least when the communication involves their romantic partner. They are great in a boardroom or when they do their Tim Allen manly grunts and fist pounds on their chest among other verbally uncommunicative males, they understand one another. It is apparently effective communication, says all they need to say. But I'm having difficulty with it. I use my words. And I need someone who uses theirs too, who takes the time to explain if I didn't quite understand, or backs up a bit if I need to hear it one more time. If they say communication is the key to a good relationship, well then it is obvious why there are so many bad one's out there. That is at least one thing that I do understand.