I used to be afraid of hard conversations.

Not anymore.

Now, I live for them.

For the conversations that make you feel like you might throw up. That at the end make you feel tired, because vulnerability is tiring. At least for me it is. To choose to open up my heart, that sometimes is a mess of tangled thoughts.

The conversations like when a friend sits down and tells me that she wishes she saw more of me. But feels like I am too busy.

That is hard to hear.

When my husband tells me that my I’m spreading myself too thin trying to please everyone.

That is hard to hear.

When I have to tell someone that has hurt me, that their actions have thrown off our relationship.

That is hard to say.

Or when after a day with less than glorious patience, I have to apologize for the hurt I caused in the midst of an emotional explosion.

THAT is hard.

But what I’ve learned from hard conversations, is that most of the time, they improve the relationship. Things get better.

It’s like pouring hydrogen peroxide in a cut. It’s gonna sting. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna bubble. But then, it allows for it to heal.

There is a quote that I heard once but have never forgotten.

“Relationships are only as deep as they are open, and as strong as they are broken.”

Because there is a part of me that believes that if I am a good friend, a good wife, a good daughter, then I will not need to have hard conversations. Because if I was doing good enough…being good enough, there wouldn’t be any hard. 

But that’s not true. The deeper the relationship, the closer the relationship, the more hard conversations I’m going to have.

With my family, with my husband, with my besties. Those are the people who have to bring me back to reality with their honesty. And those are the people who I am willing to get a little uncomfortable for. Those are the people who I am willing to say hard things to. To be honest, even when it hurts, to improve the relationship.

To say the words :

 You are letting this get the best of you…Stop.

You are dreaming too small…Grow.

You are putting this off…Jump.

You need to let it go…Breathe.

You are going to regret if you don’t walk through this door…Risk.

You deserve better than how I treated you…I’m Sorry.

 Because getting uncomfortable is good. I don’t think there can be any growth without change. And change can be awkward…Just look at my middle school year book photos.

So…Cheers! To hard, awkward, uncomfortable conversations. Because without them, we’d all be stuck in the same place. And I ain’t no tree.