Just Listening

I love listening. I love sitting still and letting other people say what they're thinking. I don't always believe what people tell me, because I'm cynical, but I think people are beautiful on the inside, and the things that they tell me are often just another way of being beautiful, even if I think they're wrong or lying or even both.

I also like talking. I can talk a lot - for hours, and never touch on a subject twice. As a matter of fact, people who can (and do) pull a conversation back to where it began often annoy me, because it's like insisting that an oak tree should bend into a trellis. I feel like conversation is a thing that's meant to reach upwards, not twist into circles.

Lately, things have been odd for me. I moved to a different state, and I've been making some new friends, and reconnecting with old friends. I'm further away from my family. Things are different. I listen a lot. I feel useful, which is something that I've craved for a long time, but I feel like I'm growing feelings and experiences and I have nowhere to put them - like. . . this city has almost no recycling, and every time I use a food container, I'm left with the painful decision of either hoarding and reusing things, or throwing them into a landfill. It feels like that, but with emotions. I can't just throw them away, because they aren't processed yet. They're useful, but I don't have a way to use them. So I carry them around.

I am missing having someone to talk to. Did I ever have anyone like that? My mother used to let me talk, and talk, and talk about nothing. Other than her, I think probably not, but I didn't notice because I was too busy complaining (and bless the saints who listened to it! Shelley - I'm thinking of you). And now I listen, and it's good for me. And some people talk at me because their need is greater than mine. Or their information is greater than mine. And some people let me prize information from them because they are good sports, and don't mind sharing when they sense I'm desperate. And some people fill the silence with smalltalk because they disagree with me, and smalltalk is safe from disagreement. And some people are too scared to tell anybody anything, and so we change the subject to inanities - but never smalltalk. They hate smalltalk.

And I listen, because I'm interested, and what they say is important. And now I just try to chew my own words and swallow them.

I dared to tell my mother things. I'm sure she was angry at me, annoyed, or judging me, but she was very patient and knew I needed to talk. And she would nod, and that would be that. And sometimes she would tell me that she agreed with me (when I pushed her) and I would not believe a word of it. I dared to tell her things, but I was never quite gentle enough to believe she could trust me with what she really thought. I'm not gentle with words.

I can't talk to someone who needs me to listen, because they need me to listen. I can't talk to someone who only shares reluctantly, because they won't ask - because they have established the boundaries of privacy, and I respect that. And I can't talk to people who don't trust me enough to tell me anything, for the same reason (except the part about me respecting that, because I don't. It just makes me hurt and frustrated). I can't talk to a counselor, because I can't pay them. I can't talk to my ministering sisters, because they only think in surfaces and appearances, and that makes me nothing to them. They are both wonderful women, generous and interesting, kind and patient, and not at all sure what to do with someone like me. I can't talk to my family, because they aren't interested in having that kind of relationship with me.

And so I blog into the void. I have given you, the internet, the thing I am carrying. It is yours.