Responsible for being understood

While we’re packing up to move out of here, we’re getting visits from family members who we haven’t seen for a while, who figure, I suppose, that it will be even longer before they come out to CA. (The latter is not necessarily a bad thing, really.) These visits have prompted, as they will, self-reflection, and reflection, in general. (Note the previous post.)

So, self-reflection. Losing my personal religion. Those beliefs that I’m not entirely aware of or consciously operating from. Such as?

The latest: I seem to believe that it is on me to make myself understood. To the extent that I will articulate things in a variety of ways, often re-articulate, substituting synonyms, creating metaphors. This is all well and good, fine for a teacher, which I have been, useful for a writer, which I am. I have been praised for being such a good communicator, no surprise. Yet, is it necessary to bring professional skills into (casual) conversation?

It came to me during my mother-in-law’s visit at one point as I realized that, once again, she did not get me, just did not understand, that I had put the onus on me to do my damnedest to have her understand, and that I had always taken that responsibility. And not just with her. I see that I have in the past walked away from communication breakdowns knowing better but feeling as if they were failures on my part.