27 Feb As They Are, Where They Are
For years, Ella did her homework at the kitchen table while I made dinner. I’d move around the kitchen, chopping vegetables, stirring a pot, opening and closing the oven. She’d spread out her papers, flipping through notes, opening and closing her laptop. Between a step in a recipe and a pause in a math problem, we’d talk.
But lately, she has a snack at the kitchen table, then heads to her room with her notebooks and laptop. She stretches out on her bed, music playing softly in the background, and works through her assignments. At first, I kept expecting her to come back. I’d call her out to try a spoonful of soup or weigh in on whether a sauce had enough salt—little excuses to draw her back to where she had always been.
And then I caught myself. How often do we do this? Try to pull people back to where they used to be, holding onto a version of them that feels familiar? Or push them toward where we think they should go, nudging them along to meet our expectations? Either way, we’re asking them to move toward us instead of meeting them where they are.
So I started going to her. I’d knock on her door, sometimes bringing cookies, sometimes just a pile of socks to fold at the edge of her bed. I’d sit beside her, and we’d talk. Or we’d just work quietly, side by side.
Yesterday, while the oven preheated, I sat with her for a while. She told me about the school dance, the fire drill that interrupted a test, the small moments of her day. Then she looked up and said, “I like that you do this. I like that you come in here.”
And I was reminded—connection isn’t about holding someone in place or steering them toward where we think they should be. It’s about moving with them. Meeting them as they are, where they are.
I know this. I’ve known it in my work, in my life. But sometimes, I need to remember it here, too—in the ordinary moments. It’s easy to hold on to what’s familiar, to wait for people to come to us. But life moves. People move. And we can stand still, waiting, or we can go to them.
Meeting someone where they are means stepping into their world with curiosity and care, not asking them to step into ours. It means letting them be themselves and choosing to be fully there—wherever there may be.