a letter

07/17/2014

origenally written for a lady who works for my company who I sorta know.


You asked me "if you can't be yourself around your family than who can you be yourself around?" or something like that.

First it starts with my family dynamics. I'm one of 4, having a twin brother, an older brother and a younger sister. My older bro, Rob, is one of those "Mr. know it all" or as my father says "the world according to Rob".
He says he has a lot of friends, however, when he travels, he goes along and does things on his own and when he has a party, he invites a lot of people but yet when my twin and I go, there may be one other guy who comes over...maybe.
He is also 5-10 about 330 LBS. my mom says he's morbidly obese.
I then have my younger sister who is MS perfect. When she was in college, for example, she was a Deen list every semester. She also played as many as
4 sports in a year, her SR year being the captain of two of her teams. She also was a part of 2 clubs at college and makes friends and keeps them, wherever she goes.
My twin, Justin, he's an alright guy. We have a lot in common but although I am older (by 5 minutes) he always seemed to be the older one. He has a few really good friends. We have had a few disagreements, where he belittles me but compared to my perfect sister or my Mr. know it all older brother, it's nothing.

I grew up the quiet and shy kid. I spoke when addressed and timed to ask for thing or to speak up because (even today) (and my parents are bad too, my dad being the worse in the last 5 or so years)... family always say "hold on Jonathan" or "not right now" or if I am in a conversation, someone will interrupt and my conversation won't matter. Another thing, which my mom will say, "you have no common sense" and when I try to explain myself they'll just tell me I'm wrong. If I try to continue they'll say "JUST DROP IT"
Parents are always right, right?

From all of this, I have learned not to say anything. What I have to say doesn't matter. I have found comfort in listening to sports, music and in my writing. It is within these 3 things I have found my ability to express myself and people admire my devotion, even if they don't personally have any interest.

I went off to college where I lived in a dorm for two years then an on campus apartment. I found a new Jonathan. I learned that not only did people want to talk to me but actually wanted to hear what I had to say. People cared about my opinion. I had 3 goals for myself going into college. One of them was make a male and female friend. I had done this and then some.
Unfortunately, I'm only connected with one of the 3 today and he lives about an hour away but it was nice when in college.
This was also true for the classroom where I felt important. When I took statistic and probability in college, by the end of the second week, my professor asked me to help others in the classroom. In all my 20+ years in a classroom, I sat in the front of the room either the first seat first row or first seat last row, depending where the door was. In this class I was asked to sit in the back of the room so I could explain things to the students back there when they didn't understand what the professor was talking about.
I felt important, I felt like I was needed, like I mattered for the first time in my life.
One of my greatest moments in my advance grad school professional seminar class was when a lady in the class said "Jonathan, can you give us your thoughts on this topic? We know you understand this topic. Maybe you can help us understand." (or something like that) I also had a lot of fun in grad school. (sorry for going backwards) in the grad professional seminar class, I named myself president as I was the activity director and sent out emails to the class on various things and at some point, I signed it "president Alpert"
and everyone in my class would refer to me as president. It was fun.

So here I sat, in classrooms with professionals who were 20-30 years older than me, as I was the only one who came right from under grad, the rest of them were either going back to switch careers or because their own kids were in college and it was their turn to further their career-have a career. It was these people who were looking to me for advice, for my opinion, thoughts...to be on their team when we did projects.

Another thing, when I spoke, not once did someone tell me to shut up, or say "oh that's nice" (as they were dismissing my thoughts) or anything like that and the more my words were met with positivity, the more I felt free to speak. The more I felt free to speak, the more relaxed I felt.

I found a new Jonathan that could be silly when he wanted to be and serious-professional when he needed to be. I could still be quiet, be the great listener but it was nice to feel like I matter.

This Jonathan was also allowed to come out when he went to work. People came to me for my knowledge and thoughts and opinions. In 2004, as an intern working at Hawthorn place, when it was a day rehab program, there was a client who was having a PTSD moment and all my coworkers ran the other way, my supervisor asked if I could try to talk to him. She said that he was rocking, crying, wailing pitifully. (especially as it was coming from a grown man) I said no problem. I went into this 2-4 of a room and got him to stop crying-wailing, slowing his rocking down and tell me where he was.
There has been other dangerous and not so dangerous situations that I either found myself in or was asked to intervene on and defuse the situation. All of these things and so many more, boosted my outgoing personality and desire to
counsel. In 2010, Kristen asked me if I would teach NAPPI. I wasn't sure
how I would do. I'm not a good public speaker. She thought I would do great at it. First I learned that the training came word-for-word from a book so my first thought was, how was I going to get this book into a form which I could work with? I finally got someone who had a very expensive scanner with a high OCR ability to scan it and email it to me. As I read the two sections I was asked to teach, at first I thought it would be impossible.
I basically had to memorize 6 pages of information, word-for-word. My co-instructors had the ability to glance down at the booklet or read from it where I couldn't do that. They could also look at the board to job their memory. Again, I couldn't do that either. I had to rely on my memory. I spent a week, memorizing two parts. When it came time for me to do my part, I felt like I had a good handle on it but not perfect. That's how it went. A co-trainer would jump in with a word or two, maybe an example, and I would pick right back up. The second time was similar, the 3rd time was made more difficult. I was asked to teach another section because one of my co-trainers was not going to be around. I said that I wasn't sure if I could but again, Kristen said that she had faith in me and so didn't the team leader. "We wouldn't ask you if we didn't think you weren't capable of doing it. We're not here to set anyone up to fail." With this encouragement and 48 hrs to prep, I taught 3 of the 9 sections, 8 pages of words, word by word and I did it near perfectly. I was so mentally exhausted but it was met by how proud I was to be able to do that. Not only did my co-trainers give me positive feedback, so didn't some of the people in the class.

In 2009 when I moved from the day treatment program to the group home, I found myself being supervised by an amazing woman. She was strong minded but caring, thoughtful, complimentary. It seemed whatever I did with the
residents, whatever idea I came up with was always met with a "that's a
great idea!" "I never thought of that!".
When we were in staff meetings, she would always ask my thoughts or opinion on stuff or if she read on my face that I had something on my mind, she would ask me what I'm thinking of. In return, I was very good to her. Always offering to do more, whatever I can do, I will. When she was on maternities leave, I taught the residents how to write sentences then paragraphs then letters where we then wrote letters to her, congratulating her on her addition to her family. You'd think I gave her a sum of money. Not only did I receive a very nice email, she thanked me for a few months when she came back.

HMMM I think I went off the track. Let me get back on track here.
My point is, whatever I did-said, it was met with positive feedback and I was comfortable to speak my mind, my thoughts because I wouldn't be told to shut up, hold on, or not right now or even ignored.

I remember one day at work I said to my coworker "you probably won't believe this but as soon as I leave this house, as soon as I walk out the door, I'm this quiet and shy guy" She didn't believe me. She sees a confident, smart, caring, sometimes silly or funny but can take charge when needs.

I also turned to the internet where I made a lot of friends from near and far. It's these people who I go to for advice, friendship, a listening hear and I would always try to reciprocate it two folds. There are topics which make me uncomfortable but I try to take myself out of the matter and be there for them because I know they would be there for me but it's not always
that easy. It is these people, my on line friends who I shared my poetry
with. They always give me positive feedback, even when I don't think they're all that great, they point out why it's great. If I tried to share a poem with my best friend, he would laugh at me. He would say poetry is so gay. He also thinks me liking Disney and the Muppets is pedifilish. Also he's my best friend who I have known for 26 years, I don't tell him everything and sometimes I feel bad about it but I spare myself a talk. He also doesn't believe in "on line friends". He says they're all big muscle men who are just trying to take advantage of me or that they are lonely women too just wants a sugar daddy or someone to go crazy on. He uses the Indiana situation and now the Atlanta situation as examples but I'm not going to let these few bad experiences stop me from traveling, meeting people and capturing a life time goal to visit all major league baseball stadiums.

It is from these negative comments from him that I don't tell him everything and so most of the time I'm just quiet around him too. Unless his kids are around. I absolutely adore his 2.5 year old daughter. She gives me all the attention I want and then some. I'm glad I can't see John's eyes when I'm being silly with her. He's probably rolling them so much he could get a concussion.

Very ironically, it is John's sister, Lisa, who lives in TX, who are one of the 3 or so people who has seen every side of me and appreciates-admires them. I have gone down each of the last 3 years to visit her and her little family. She has become my BFF... as kids say today. She has pushed my wild side to the max. She's (with her husband teaching me first) shot guns with me. I drove her car around a block with her just giving me verbal instructions and I even drove an army Humvee many years ago with her directing me. This year we were supposed to do something even more daring...but mother nature got in the way. Maybe it will be next year's adventure.


So that's a bit more about me. Probably more than you ever care to know about. I hope I answered your question about why I can't be myself around my friends and family.

Thank you for reading...any thoughts or questions are welcomed.
Jonathan