Member-only story
Listening is an Active Verb
It’s true. The straw that broke the camel’s back only need be a whisper of a touch. The feather of weight, a breath.
There comes a point when there is one drop too much water behind the dam. The next drop causes the dam to burst.
A balloon can only hold so much air. It will explode in an instant.
I snapped a month ago after telling my boyfriend what he was doing didn’t feel good. I told him twice.
His response was, “G.O.I”
I had to ask what that meant.
“Get Over It.”
It was the wrong response.
As we were exiting the coffee shop he looked over at the family that had been sitting nearby during our exchange. He said to them, “don’t mind her, she’s retarded.”
“I hate you,” was my response to him.
Of course there is more to the story. Of course there is more nuance, more detail, more flavor, more color, more background, more history. But for me, this was the bottom line, the essence of what happened.
It doesn’t matter what we were talking about, this is the essence of the exchange.
