13 Nov How We Learn to Be With Each Other
It was one of those changes that seems like nothing at first. Ella started closing her door when she did homework.
Emma is not fond of this change. For years, both bedroom doors have stayed open, the two of them moving easily between rooms across the short stretch of hallway that connects them. When she finds Ella’s door closed now, she opens it and steps inside.
Ella looks up from her desk. “Please go out,” she says, her voice gentle but certain. “And shut the door behind you.”
Emma hesitates, then pulls the door closed and walks back to her own room. For a moment, she sits there, quiet and still. Then she opens a drawer, finds a pen, and begins to write on a small square of paper. Before she folds it, she adds a heart sticker in the corner.
A minute later, she slides the note under Ella’s door.
I want to be with you. Can I come in?
Emma sits cross-legged on the hallway floor, waiting.
After a pause, a note slides back.
You can come in if you’re very quiet.
Emma writes again.
Okay. I will be very quiet. I promise.
She underlines the word promise, then returns to her room to grab a book.
When she comes back, the door opens. Emma steps inside, settles on the rug, and begins to read. Ella turns back to her work. The room fills with an easy, companionable quiet. Two girls, side by side, together again, each with what she needs.
How easy it is to confuse a boundary with rejection, when sometimes it’s the very thing that allows closeness to keep existing. A boundary doesn’t shut people out; it shows them how to come in.
We talk about boundaries as if they’re walls meant to divide, but they are more like doors — sturdy enough to protect what matters, open enough to let others through when they understand what’s needed on the other side. They keep kindness sustainable. They make room for connection that doesn’t come at the cost of ourselves.
Maybe that’s one of the ways to love someone well: learning to listen when someone says, “Here’s how to be with me right now,” and learning to say it yourself when the time comes.
Boundaries allow us to build a door, and then gently show someone how to walk through.