Lately, I've been trying to become more comfortable with being alone. It’s something I’m not particularly good at nor fond of. I've been fortunate to have amazing friends, caring sisters, trusting roommates and incredible significant others to walk through life with for many seasons at a time. I've had the privilege of being in lines of work that have allowed me plenty of opportunity to work directly alongside others as a close team. I've always loved to feel the joy that is togetherness.  Though there is so much value in experiencing that solidarity, I've also come to realize the importance of making time to be alone, too. And I don't just mean the literal part of being alone that is doing things without the presence of others. I mean truly finding the time and space to acknowledge introspective thoughts and find the connection with oneself on a deeper, soul-level. I've noticed lately how seldom I actually get to that place, as I am usually trying to "make the most" of my time throughout each of the days to the point that even if I am technically by myself, I don't feel it because I am still looking outward to my environment for some external escape or interest and attaching myself to that. 

After recently reading two pieces on deep listening written by someone in the community, I noticed a key theme in both: "Listening for what is being communicated but isn't being said." Then I thought more about what it looks like when I've felt someone do this well in my own life.

It took me back to a moment this summer, when I sat across the dinner table from a person I had only recently met. As we sipped our drinks waiting for the food to arrive, I started casually talking about work from the last week and some projects I’d been focusing on. But it took me by surprise when he looked me in the eyes, changed the topic and said, “So I just wanted to check in with you. When we had been messaging last week, I sensed something was bothering you, but I knew you weren’t ready to talk about it. I wanted to see if you were still in that headspace or if whatever it was wasn’t bleeding into this week. Did you want to talk about it?” 

During my sophomore year of college, I took a creative writing course that helped me grow on various levels. Throughout my schooling, I had always felt confident in the subject area of writing, but the professor I had shattered that confidence the first month of the semester... in a great and perhaps necessary way.