Polite..Who Me?

AM I TOO POLITE..? Quite recently I was having a conversation with someone who I'd recently met and during the conversation the observation was made that I was so polite. I smiled inwardly at that because I thought to myself that I am pretty polite but this is obviously a person that does not know me yet. The reason for her observation was because I was talking about critiquing someone’s work. I did not feel comfortable doing so because while I felt it was good work I was not particularly feeling it. And this was personal not professional. Per usual my face must have shown my conflict and my words must have sounded politically correct. Thus the comment, “you are so polite”.I can assure you that if this same person had spoken to me twenty five to thirty years ago the comment would have been “oh my god I can not believe you said that”. I spent most of those years saying whatever came to my mind. As my elders used to say, if it came up it came out. I had a reputation as not giving a care what anyone thought about what I said you either loved me or hated me. I really did not care, I was keeping it real before keeping it real was real. However as I left my twenties and entered my thirties my life was different I was married, my husband was a career soldier and I was raising two sons. I realized that the impact of what left my mouth impacted more than me. It affected the man I loved, potentially the career that allowed me to purchase cute shoes and what my sons viewed of the world particularly females. Did I stop keeping it real? Hell no I just learned to pick my battles, I learned that you sometimes have to sit still and allow an expression or a look to send a message. Most importantly I learned that the impact of what I finally said was greater when I gave it some thought and considered what came out of my mouth. Not only that I learned that I did not have a thing to prove to anyone and I KNEW that often when I was just throwing my opinions out there I was trying to prove to the world how smart I was and how much I knew.Now at my age and with my experiences, I know that there are times when I just need to plain go off on some people and let them know right out the gate that this is what is. But I also know that if I can teach, guide or encourage by being careful about what I say that is probably what I will do. Now this only works for me, you know “you do you and I do me” and together we can all coexist. This does not mean that old “you can get more flies with honey cause who the heck wants flies”. What it means is that most days I will keep it to myself unless you ask for it. Now when you come to me and ask for it you will get it straight with no chaser. I don’t think that makes me too polite, just me choosing for myself as a grown woman how I want to keep it real and doing just that on my own terms. acVernon Menchan