how's it going

My grandmother was one of my most favorite people in the world. I've often felt regret that I only knew her as a child. She left this world when I was about twelve, quite a few years before I could interact with adults as an adult and really get to know them. I understood things differently as a child. Children don't ask how you're doing when they say hello, because they don't really care yet.

Another great person who passed much more recently was her brother. We conversed many times as adults, although never as much as I would have liked. Still, in some sense it feels like I never interacted with him as an adult, either. I was so wrapped up in myself, even ten years ago, I was like a kid that just wanted someone to tell stories to. 

I had trouble with greetings like "hey, how are you" because it felt insincere. People don't really want an answer, right? Only now does it occur to me that I felt that way, because I was the one that didn't care. If someone was hurt or needed help, I cared in that sense. I just didn't want to hear anyone else's stories. I was incurious, at best. 

I tried to be a good listener, but I certainly wasn't proactive about it. I also had a very hard time asking questions. I'd think because it felt too aggressive or something, I wasn't sure it was appropriate. Beneath all that, it never occurred to me that questions weren't just a good social skill, but that I should take interest in the answers. I didn't even notice the deficit. It becomes easier to ask, when I actually care.

Even engaging with people I've known more recently, I've been more walled off than I'd even realized. In my own world to a great extent, like my father was. Something seems to have shifted in me, coming out of the pandemic. It's distressing to realize how little I've really been present in my interactions with people all my life. I could have had so many questions, but couldn't think of even one.

I don't know why. I was always trying. For what, I was never sure. I'm still quite lost. I'm not sure how much progress I've really made, but this past year has been substantively different. Before the pandemic, I was always hiding in the corner of the gym. Of course I wasn't going to ask anyone how they were doing. Then they'd just try to talk to me. 

Now I say it all the time. Turns out, people often do have real answers.