#words really are carmy's biggest stumbling block

[trying-to-get-somewhere-real]

okay so something i read today has me thinking once again about the significance of carm telling syd that she makes him better at this, and what a huge fucking deal it is. the extremely talented @bartonbones just updated their incredible fic, my hand was tied to yours, and it includes this bit (spoiler warning) where carmy struggles (but ultimately succeeds to a degree) to tell ebra that what he's doing at the sandwich window is important and he's doing a good job:

Ebrahem’s joy is real and present and wonderful, but it’s still kind of hard to look at, even with how much he leaned on it. That’s what a lot of this old shit felt like—the Beef, Mikey, even Chicago itself. He lived inside of it but he couldn’t look at it, he loved it and he hated it, he needed it and he could barely stand it. But that was his shit. Ebrahem was good, here. Everyone else was good. He needs to start fucking saying it before no one expects him to anymore—as hard as it is sometimes, as against his nature as it feels, he never wants anyone to have to look into his silence for answers. He wants to tell them. He really does. “Look, what you do here is really important, okay? It’s just as important as all the other shit, you know. It’s not, like, a bit part, or a plebe job, alright? This shit, it really matters. To me, and to Richie, and—and to fuckin’ Darius, right?”

and that example in the fic of carmy's struggle to praise his team— when i know he absolutely feels those feelings and knows they're deserving of it—made me think back on s2 and try to recall whether he was ever able to express praise/gratitude/pride in anyone verbally other than when he told syd she makes him better at this. his struggle to express himself here in the fic felt very true to canon for me because carm did all of these things all season to show he had faith in people: sending Tina and Marcus and Richie to places where they could grow, giving Tina the knife, giving Syd the jacket, etc.—but rarely (ever?) was able to tell anyone to their face that he was proud of them. we get claire telling richie that carm loves him very much, but it's not carm telling richie and we didn't even get to see carm tell claire! when marcus presents his new dishes to carm and syd, you can tell carm is impressed and pleased, but he doesn't really go all the way to saying that in so many words. you can see it and feel it but he doesn't quite say it.

i haven't done a close rewatch so i am probably missing something (please let me know), but i kind of think what he said to syd may have been the only time he told someone involved with the bear that they were good this season (even in the roundabout way of "your goodness makes me better"). that moment has always been incredibly powerful for me because the specific words he chooses feel so weighty and vulnerable and kind of unlike him, but i didn't really consider until this very minute that carm maybe goes the entire season without giving any kind of verbal affirmation to anyone else period? am i crazy?