Talk Talk Talk

I think everyone has something that they would like to change about themselves.  Some of us have many things we’d like to change.  My list would probably fill a legal pad, but most of my “fixes” are either impossible (be taller) or out of my price range (tummy tuck/face lift/boob job).  There is one thing on that list, however, that is well within my capability to fix - for free! - and yet I just can’t seem to fix it.

I talk too much.

I know it is true because I’ve been told it my entire life.  Parents, sibling, teachers, bosses.  

“Shannon, be quiet.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Shannon is a talker.”

“How do you ever get anything done when you’re always talking?”

My husband is a talker also, but not nearly as bad as I am.  When we were first dating, a friend of ours asked how we ever managed to get a word in.  

::insert eye roll here::

In my 46 years of being told I talk too much, I’ve probably made 46,000 vows to stop doing it.  I’ve failed every single time.

I tend to be at my chattiest when I am in social situations with people I am unfamiliar with.  I’m not the most social person to begin with.  I like being in my own home, with my husband and daughter, maybe a couple friends over for drinks.  I’m chatty then, but not the full on diahrrea-of-the-mouth as my mother used to call it.  But put me in someone else’s house, with people I’ve never met, and I become so hyper-aware of feeling like an outsider that I start to talk.  Incessantly.

I bring up this whole topic because I did it last night at a new friend’s house.  I had met one other person there, but I didn’t really know her.  Everyone else was new to me.  So what did I do?  

Talk, talk, talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk . . . talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk . . . talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk . . .

The worst part about it is the talk-hangover I wake up with the next day.  The feeling of embarrassment because I yammered on and on all evening.  The brain pain from trying to remember everything I said.  The dread that I now feel over seeing any of these women again because of my embarrassment, which is made worse by the fact that a couple of them work in the same building as my husband.

Yes, I know.  I’m probably over-thinking it.  It doesn’t matter though.

Vow 46,0001 has now been made.