Can a person really bring too many mashed potatoes? Yes, yes they can.

Yesterday a family member and I (and he shall remain nameless except his initials are BGA) engaged in a slightly heated discussion about…well, it doesn’t matter. Let me just say it wasn’t about politics. I don’t even remember how the subject came up but since it is something that I feel very strongly about (and true to my A.S.S. genes) the conversation became much more, shall we say, animated and lively.

Now I am not saying I was ticked off. No, no. I was simply right and BGA was wrong. You can picture the scenario. And there sat Kenz, slightly amused by all the craziness. I wasn’t yelling, really, I was just talking with elevated volume. Increasingly elevated volume.

I was talking loud because I was so afraid that my rational, reasonable words would not be heard in normal tones and so I blustered and sputtered and punctuated the air with my pointer finger. At one point, in exasperation, I yelled from the kitchen into the bedroom, You hearing all this, ld? I could use some help here? To which he shot back some comment that I didn’t hear and then I took a deep breath and carried on the battle. I got no reinforcement there.

Now here’s the thing. BGA is a hard person to debate with because he is stubborn and doesn’t really get flustered (which is infuriating) and he is so confident that he is right. Shocker. The problem lies in the fact that I am the same. ‘Cept, I do get flustered, er discombobulated. You see the situation. Anyway, after going more than a few rounds we called it quits on the debating and ate some lunch. Which, to BGA’s credit, he ate with compliments between bites. This isn’t bad, Toots, really. Did I mention I fixed Pesto, which is made of pine nuts and does not include meat? You see his sweetness?

Continuing on. After lunch we all sat around the living room and the subject came up yet again. And again we went ‘round and ‘round with our words, talking past each other. But then someone stepped in to mediate (someone whose initials are JLW, better known as Goodboy, Hanz or Janny Nanny) and pointed out to me that what I was saying was being interpreted as hurtful and my argument was being misunderstood because of my ‘over the top’, excessive ‘all or nothing’ statements. Hurtful? I was being hurtful?

Ding. Hello. The light went on.

I turned to Brig and blurted out, “Oh well, I always serve too much pig.”

Wh- wh- what? What does that have to do with anything? He looked truly puzzled.

When I fix food or bring refreshments, I usually bring too much, way too much. Because I AM AFRAID THERE WON’ T BE ENOUGH. The Kalua Pig, I want there to be enough.

Ding. Hello. He gets it. I see it in his face.

But in case the rest of you don’t ‘get it’ let me spell it out. Because I am like every other human on the planet and on top of that a mess of a gal to boot, I have deep seated fears and strongly held values. Real deep fears and real strong opinions, on some subjects. They are so tightly held that I sometimes become afraid that I won’t be able to communicate them, nay, transmit them and have them embraced by those I love, so I beat them over the head and repeat myself over and over and talk LOUDandfastandreallyLOUDandsaycrazythings. Things like 'you can’t be a good person unless you are educated' and 'girls shouldn’t get married at 19'. Crazy stuff like that. And because I am afraid that you won’t get enough of my strongly held opinion, well, then have some more pig or pop because I brought more, lots more. And you must eat it.

But now the clouds of confusion have parted and I see that in my relentless pursuit to communicate to those I love that I value knowledge like the air I breathe and that girls, (oh, especially girls) should continually grow and learn and learn and grow (and READ!), I have unwittingly hurt others. Not intentionally, no never. But, very often the way I say something (as in tone and manner), not necessarily the message itself, is what is heard.

In other words, there are better ways for me to communicate. Far better ways. So, long and short of it is, I am sorry, soooo sorry dear little fam (and BGA in this case) for my lousy debating skills. You know I love you all. Oh, how I love you all. And BGA you are right, we are not so far apart in our thinking. In essentials we are very much the same.

The people in my fam are the best, and though we are all flawed and weird, we know how to put little verbal tussles and disagreements in perspective. No sooner had all this stuff happened then someone asked ‘Wanna go see a movie?’ to which we all agreed.

Sitting in the dark movie theater last night I got a little teary. Not because the movie was good (it wasn’t) but because I live a blessed life, surrounded by people who patiently tolerate my weaknesses and irrationality, gently point out my craziness, and love me still.

And while I make no guarantees about cutting back on the serving portions for our next family gathering, I promise to try really, really hard to serve up a lot less verbal pig.