Justaboutagirl’s Weblog

I’ve been thinking a lot about words lately.  As a communications major, I dealt in words for a majority of my college career.  My words were constantly being tweaked and rearranged, by myself and others, to get the exact message I needed my audience to understand.  For those four years, I ate, drank, breathed, lived the written word!  I thought to myself, “This is what I love. This is what I want to do forever.”  And then I got to the real world.

Nowadays, I don’t do too much with written word. It mainly consists of the few emails I send out, the occasional letter I draft, the quick sarcastic notes to my coworkers. This blog, of course. I deal more with the spoken word.  Phone calls, talking with my coworkers, meetings, dealing with random people coming in the door, talking to my core group, my friends, my family – whatever it is, it leaves me with little time and energy for writing.

I’ve come to realize in these past few months that the power of the spoken word has so much more potency than that of the written word.  A written word is personal – a letter from a close friend or lover, a poem, a novel.  These things have moved me more times than I can count.  But the spoken word – that reverberates in your body and soul.  It can linger for years and years.

Obviously that’s not really the only case; that’s just what I’ve been noticing recently.  Words in either form can and do last a lifetime and longer.  But at a recent family gathering, we were talking about how critical words, even said jokingly, can be the most hurtful things you experience.  I was kind of flabbergasted at how things people said to my grandmother years and years ago still stay with her today, and are still just as hurtful as they were when they were said to her, or that jokes made at my aunt’s expense when she was sick make her start to cry and have to leave the room.  What kind of power have we been given?  And we so easily, thoughtlessly, throw words around like they were nothing but feathers blowing in the breeze.

I really notice the power of the spoken word when it is absent.  When I need a reassuring voice or some answers, and there is not one word spoken – that is when I see its true authority.  You hold so much power in your small, little tongue that simply by choosing not to use it, you can change my day one hundred percent in the other direction! And that can be both good and bad; sometimes it’s better not to say anything, even when you really want to, because it will hurt the other person.  And sometimes choosing to stay silent is just as hurtful.  

For whatever reason, words set to music are the most moving to me.  For the past hour, I’ve been listening to this one song on repeat, over and over again.  The music and the vocal harmonies are beautiful, but the words within are what have been keeping me captivated.  It seriously makes me want to bury my head under the covers and cry every time I hear it. 

Do you remember when we didn’t care 
We were just two kids that took the moment when it was there 

Do you remember you at all 
Another heart calls 

I remember when we stole the night 
We’d lie awake but dream until the sun would wash the sky 

Just as soon as I see you 
Didn’t I didn’t I tell you 
As deep as I need you 
You wanna leave it all 

~Another Heart Calls, All American Rejects