The crisp fall air peeks out this morning while I ride around the outside ring. My mentor yells to me as I trot closer to her and she laughs.

“Sometimes what I have to tell you is more important than what you are trying to tell me,” she says.

I have been more than honest that I have not done ‘unhappy’ well.

I have been more than honest at acknowledging my faults. It is not only my personality to do so, but if you stay in counseling long enough you have no choice, but to learn some ‘realities’ shall we say about yourself.

My mentor and me have a good chuckle together. I tell her I have always been a talker (she is shocked by this.)

In my Catholic elementary school, the nuns were actually quite gracious about it.

1st Grade Report Card Comments – “Colleen is a very sweet girl, only she talks too much.”

2nd Grade Report Card Comments – “Colleen is a lovely girl, only she talks too much.”

3rd Grade Report Card Comments – “Colleen is a beautiful girl, only she talks too much.”

There weren’t many comments after that. Either I wised up and shut up (at least during class) or they ran out of ‘nice’ adjectives to lead in with.

So I tell my mentor that though I have always been a talker, I was funny so I could get away with it. I also can be equally as good a listener or I wouldn’t be able to be a freelance journalist or a marketer.

The problem is divorce is like old people. You know how old people’s personality traits get more and more exaggerated with age? Especially their not so great qualities? Well, divorce is kinda like that. I was unhappy for so long that the fun, fast, talking Colleen was replaced with the annoying talker. The one that got in trouble in class.

So one of my not so great qualities became so exaggerated. Like my sister says, “That’s what happens when you live that long with someone at home who doesn’t listen to anything you say.”

I use this opportunity to plead my case with my mentor. To assure her (and quite honestly myself) that I wasn’t always an ‘over’ talker.

“That will get better,” she says.

I stop ‘Nacho’ and sprawl over his neck – relaxing both my body and mind.

And I realize, it already has. The happier I get the quieter I become.

There’s a sense of peace that comes with that.

Well, at least until another teacher tells me I talk too much. At the very least she could have thrown in an adjective to soften it.

“Colleen is a superb rider, only she talks too much.”

Yup, that sounds good to me.

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