ESSAY | Keeley Schroder’s APRIL CHALLENGE
A Listener By Default
It’s never been my choice
For the past fifty years, I have been a listener by default. It began innocently enough. I had to listen to figure things out. No one believed me when I said I had amnesia after recovering from a coma at age six, and that was all I wanted to talk about, but because no one wanted to hear it, I stopped talking and started listening.
I became good at it. Too good. Family, friends, and even strangers just assumed that I would listen to them, as if I had nothing of my own to say. But in reality, it was never my first choice. I had plenty to say. It was just that no one gave me the time to say it.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve been on the phone with family or a friend and be asked, “How are you?” and before I can even get a whole sentence out, they go back to talking about themselves. Or, I’d be in the middle of telling them something and I’d be interrupted. After this has happened so many times, I’ve just stopped talking about me and instead, listen to them talk about themselves. I have only one friend who lets me ramble on — jules - Miz Mindful — and it always surprises me how much I do talk when I am talking to her. Maybe I just have too many family members and friends with ADD.
