A Study in Communication
05. Jun, 2008 
6 Comments
Eventually you have to tell someone. You can research online until you form little calluses on your mouse finger, but eventually you’re going to have to spit it out.
“We’re moving overseas.”
We told some people at the dog park first. We were beta testing our delivery.
“Yeah, so we’re, you know, moving, to like, Spain” I like to clear my throat after a beauty like that.
But it worked! They didn’t throw stones at us, call us hippies or try to sic their dogs on us. It was going very well. They said, “great”. We were encouraged.
Next we tried it out on our neighbors. I stammered something out about Spain and traveling. They had all these “questions”. I’m not very good at making people understand why we would want to drop everything and move abroad, at least not to people who don’t immediately see why. I think it’s possible I might have muttered something about working remotely, and made some forced metaphor between travel and sandwiches.
I feigned a call on my cell phone and we hastily made our retreat. We needed to regroup, to strategize.
Back home, I drew on the white board, and my husband made pivot tables in excel. There might have been a 5 point action plan, but only if you think that’s awesome and not the most ridiculous thing ever.
We were ready for the big show: the parents.
The day came, and we sat on the couch facing each other. One would call and the other would make encouraging faces and try to mouth helpful words. It was a system for communicating important news, that we had mastered over eight years of jointly disappointing our parents.
I went first. At the end, my mother said simply, “Oh. Okay.” My husband’s parent’s seconded that opinion. We were stunned. Was it really going to be this easy?
So we started telling everyone. Our friends, the guy at Mike’s Convenience store, the mail man, the lady that never makes eye contact when we pass her on the street—everyone. Well, except my work. They don’t seem to like that kind of news up front. I think the official corporate policy is: “Lie to us. Trust us, it’s easier for everyone”.
But eventually even that secret had to be told. And within 2 seconds of the email announcement being sent to everyone in my department, I had 5 instant message boxes pop up. “Spain???? OMG RU4REAL?“ (Ok my coworkers don’t actually IM like that).
By now, we’ve gotten really good at our “We’re moving to Spain” dog and pony show. We’ve got the beats down: my husband pauses for my part, I set him up for his joke, and boom they don’t know what hit them. We like to educate and entertain. It’s called edutainment, folks.
This won’t last long. In a few short weeks we’ll be taking the show on the road, this time in Spanish. When they ask, “¿Por qué España?” I’m going to need something better than “No entiendo”. Maybe it’s time to start practicing our miming skills.
(Yes, that sound you heard was my husband banging his head on a large Spanish-English dictionary. We’re working on that.)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha…I laugh hysterically because you capture it so well! I love the first paragraph…only b/c that’s where we’re at – all callused up, bursting at the seams to tell, but mute as swans. We have each managed to spit out the words once – like you, to people who don’t know us from Adam, just to try. It felt weird, but does help to cement the whole idea. We’ll work our way up from there.
Cheers,
G.
Gillian– Glad you liked it!
I say to hell with everyone (say it nicely). Let everyone wonder why. They can live the rest of their life in their nice expensive boxes, looking at their nice expensive furniture, enjoying their expensive glass marbles in the nice bowl on the coffee table (can someone explain this one to me?), driving their nice expensive Land Rovers and watching their expensive flat screens. On their death beds will it be cooler to say, “I watched Dancing With the Stars in HD”, or “I lived for a couple years in Spain?” I’m going with the later.
I can totally relate to the ‘dog and pony show’ thing. Once I start telling people my travel plans it seems like anytime I tell a new person it goes pretty much exactly the same way. It’s like some kind of theatrical performance. I have my lines all research and the person I’m speaking to unknowingly participates in exactly the same way at the person I told two hours ago. Ah but it never gets old… one of the best feelings ever. Not as good as actually going though, of course!
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My wife and I told her parents over Christmas dinner that we were going to travel around the world for a year. Their response: Forty-five full seconds of silence. Then, “Pass the potatoes.” And they never mentioned it again for three full months.
Go figure.
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Por qué España? ¡por qué no! Me encanta Madrid y estoy seguro que te enamorarás también. ¡Suerte!