TMM: The Most Important Things

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.” – Stephen King

I remember each and every single time words failed me, because it doesn’t happen so often. The bitter moments when I needed them the most, when I struggled to express what I felt and what I wanted, and most times nothing but silence came out. Other times, tears.

The thing is, words do diminish the meaning of those words we hold closest to our souls, the words that could either make us or break us, the words that define who we are or what it is we’re feeling at any given moment. Maybe we are afraid that the words won’t mean as much to the person we’re telling them to, maybe it is because they mean a lot more to us then they could possibly mean to someone else.

And, in the end, the sad truth is that it’s not the words or how we say them that truly matters, but who we’re telling those words to.